The Secret to LMS Debugging
Unraveling the chatter between your learning management system (LMS) and the content you’ve produced in your authoring app can be frustrating. What should you do when learners do one thing but the LMS says they’ve done something else? How do you handle it when the score or status isn’t recorded as you’d expect or when the course doesn’t suspend or resume the way you’d like? An important first step is to test your project in SCORM Cloud, but what should you do when your course works properly in SCORM Cloud but not in your LMS? That’s where LMS debug mode comes in! It’s an easy way to see exactly what your AICC, SCORM, or cmi5 content is sending to the LMS and how the LMS is responding. By default, LMS debug mode is disabled in your published output, but it’s easy to turn on. In this article, we’ll walk you through that process step by step. If you prefer, you can watch this video instead: Step 1: Locate Your Published scormdriver.js File First, publish your course in cmi5, SCORM, or AICC format (this debug process does not work for xAPI/Tin Can API). If you’re using Storyline 360, Presenter 360, Quizmaker 360, or Engage 360, the next thing you’ll do is click Open in the publish success window. From there, double-click on the lms folder. If you’re using Rise 360, export your Rise 360 course as a cmi5, SCORM, or AICC package and save it to your computer. From there, extract the zip file containing your course and open the scormdriver folder. From there, no matter which app you’re using, you’ll want to find the scormdriver.js file. Step 2: Enable Debug Mode Open the scormdriver.js file in a text editor, such as Notepad, and locate the following line: var SHOW_DEBUG_ON_LAUNCH = false; Replace the word false with the word true, as shown in the screenshot below: Then, save and close the scormdriver.js file. Step 3: Zip Your Content and Upload It to Your LMS Next you’ll need to zip your file so you can upload it to your LMS. If you created your course in Storyline 360, Presenter 360, Quizmaker 360, or Engage 360, simply go back to the publish success window and click the Zip button. This creates a zipped file of the published output in the same location where you published your course. If you created your course in Rise 360, you’ll need to do this manually. To do that, go back to the top-level folder of the published output and zip the files. Make sure not to zip the folder that contains your course, just the course files. Once you’ve zipped your file, upload it to your LMS. Step 4: Launch Your Course and Save the Debug Log When you launch the content in your LMS, it’ll open in one window, and the debug log will open in another. After reproducing the issue you’re troubleshooting, copy and paste the text from the debug window into a document for further investigation. Step 5: Review the Debug Log Your LMS provider is most qualified to interpret the contents of your debug log, so we recommend opening a support case with them. However, if you’re familiar with AICC, SCORM, or cmi5, feel free to take a look at the log. Sometimes an issue is obvious and jumps off the page. If neither you nor your LMS provider is able to spot the cause of the problem, submit a case to our support team and we’ll take a look. Be sure to include a copy of your project file so we can try to reproduce the problem. Need more help troubleshooting your LMS? Check out these other resources: How to Troubleshoot Your LMS with SCORM Cloud Learning More About Your LMS: Suspend Data and Resume Behavior Want to avoid the hassle of course and LMS miscommunications? Try out Reach 360—our frictionless LMS. It’s integrated with Articulate 360 apps, so you can publish directly and be confident that everything will work as expected. It’s fast and hassle-free!Looking Back at the 70+ Articulate 360 Features We Released in 2021
It’s amazing the degree to which new features can empower you to create even better e-learning. That’s one thing I love about Articulate 360 subscriptions—you get access to additional features as soon as we release them. Did you know that in 2021 alone, we released over 70? This list highlights every feature we released or enhanced last year. Browse through each one to discover how much your favorite course creation apps have evolved in just 12 short months. Storyline 360 360° Images Create immersive learning experiences by including 360° images in your Storyline 360 courses. And engage learners as they explore these images by adding interactive elements, such as hotspots and markers. Hotspot Hints for 360° Images Assist learners with finding all the hotspots in your 360° image guided tour interactions by providing on-screen text instructions. Learn more. Tooltips for 360° Images Help learners know what to expect before they click by displaying tooltips when learners hover over markers and hotspots in 360° interactions. Translation for 360° Images Simplify your translation process by exporting the content from your 360° interactions alongside the rest of your course when you export text to XLIFF or Word for translation. Learn more. Additional Accessibility Features for 360° Images Enable all learners to have the same engaging experience with your 360° images with new and enhanced accessibility features. Modern Player Accessible Contrast Meet WCAG accessibility guidelines for visual contrast and color with the updated modern player. These enhancements make it easier for all learners to read the player text, decipher the icons, perceive the controls, and navigate accurately. Learn more. Additional Keyboard Shortcuts for Learners Include more ways for learners to interact with courses with additional keyboard shortcuts, including options for Play/Pause, Previous, Next, and Submit. Plus, learners can now use the ESC key to close the shortcuts screen. “Previous” Button Accessibility Improvements Improve the course experience for learners using screen reader or keyboard navigation with this update to the Previous button. Now the Previous button on the first slide of a course or a lightbox gets disabled and skipped during keyboard navigation. Improved Closed Captioning Button Active State Make the Closed Captioning button active state more noticeable in the modern player. When the Closed Captioning button is enabled in the modern player, it’s now underlined in your chosen accent color Option to Display Accessible Text by Default Ensure your course content is accessible by setting accessible text as the default text for a course. Learn more. Improved Seekbar Accessibility Create a better seekbar experience for learners using screen readers on mobile devices. They can now seek back and forth and the seekbar is visible in high-contrast mode. Two-Color Focus Indicator Make the accessibility focus indicator in the modern player more visible against any background in your course by selecting two colors—one light and one dark—for it. Customize Captions Font Size Improve closed caption readability in the modern player. You can now increase closed caption font size up to 200%. Logo Alt Text Make your course logo accessible to learners using screen readers and other assistive technologies by adding alternative (alt) text to it. Learn more. Custom xAPI Statements Enable advanced tracking options that give you additional data about learner activity by using triggers to define custom xAPI statements. LRS Support Expand your options for collecting learner data by publishing your Storyline 360 courses for a learning record store (LRS). Learn more. xAPI Debug Tool Troubleshoot xAPI statements quickly using the new debugger. Language Identification in xAPI (Tin Can API) Courses Simplify how you identify the language of an xAPI (Tin Can API) course with the Language Code field in the reporting and tracking options. Additional Question Bank Scoring Options Refine how question banks with branching are scored in a course using the new “Only Score Viewed Questions” box. Learn more. Improved Scoring for Combined Result Slides Avoid scoring conflicts when you require learners to pass each quiz in a Combined Result slide. This updated process prevents rare situations where learners could get a minimum passing score for each quiz and still fail the entire course. Learn more. Elapsed Time Variables Create timed interactions and conditional triggers using built-in variables that track the total time a learner spends on a slide, a scene, or an entire course. JavaScript Editor Improvements: Syntax Highlighting and Line Numbers Speed up your workflow in the Storyline 360 JavaScript editor with the help of syntax highlighting and line numbers. Word Translation Improvements Speed up the translation process for you and your translators. Word export options now provide more context for translators, preserve all text formatting, and use the modern DOCX format. Also, basic formatting changes made in the translated Word document are preserved during the Storyline 360 import process. Learn more. SVG Support Help images stay sharp when learners zoom in and out by importing scalable vector graphics (SVGs) to Storyline 360. Increased the Built-in Widescreen (16:9) Slide Size Get more room to work and avoid unexpected scroll bars in text objects with a larger built-in widescreen (16:9) slide size: 960x540. Define Default Slide Size Speed up the start of course development by setting a default slide size for new projects. Learn more. Modern Player Custom Color Customize the modern player to match your course color scheme by selecting your own background color. Course Cover Photo Improve branding and give learners a preview of the subject matter by adding a course cover photo in the modern player. Learn more. Text Overflow Autofit Improvements Refine how on-screen copy is displayed and improve accessibility with more ways to manage and fine-tune course text elements. This update also includes options for how to handle text that doesn’t fit its bounding box. Learn more. Turn on these improvements by simply upgrading your project text. Seekbar Display Improvements on Mobile Devices Improve how your course seekbar looks on mobile devices. In landscape mode, the seekbar now displays below the slide content and no longer overlaps the slide content. Upgraded Microsoft .NET Framework to Version 4.8 Keep everything up to date with this shift to the Microsoft .NET Framework dependency for Storyline 360 to version 4.8. Updates to the Embedded Version of Chromium Stay current with these updates to the embedded version of Chromium. In 2021 it was upgraded to 90.0.4430.93 and then 94.0.4606.81. Classic Trigger Workflow Retired Simplify your choices for working with triggers with this change: the new trigger workflow is now the only trigger workflow. End of Flash Importing and Publishing Modernize your options for importing content and publishing courses with this update. Since Adobe discontinued Flash at the end of 2020, we removed Flash features, including the options to import Flash movies and publish Flash output, from Storyline 360. Rise 360 Section 508 Accessibility Support Feel confident that Rise 360 courses reach all learners now that it supports Section 508 accessibility guidelines. See our conformance report for details. Accessible Block Management While Authoring Improve course navigation accessibility. Screen readers can now see and announce the Move Up, Move Down, and Duplicate buttons. Fully Accessible Labeled Graphic Blocks Enable all learners to access your graphic interactions with improved keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and a color selector for markers. New Image Alignment Options for Interactive Blocks Enjoy even more ways to lay out your images with multiple alignment options in accordion, tabs, timeline, and process blocks. Text Contrast on Cover Photos Set the text contrast on your cover photo to 0% to avoid Rise 360 darkening it further if your course photo is already dark enough to meet accessibility contrast standards. In-progress Audio/Video Playback Position Automatically Bookmarked Automatically bookmark the playback position of in-progress audio or video when learners navigate away from or close a lesson. Video Player Language Support Localize the video player automatically by choosing one of 16 supported languages. Learn more. “Continue” Button Style Options for Quiz Lessons Customize your quiz lesson user interface by choosing what kind of button displays at the end: the standard Next Lesson button or a Continue button. Learn more. New Course Template: Effective Workplace Presentations Use the latest course template to help learners deliver more effective presentations in a workplace setting. Review 360 Manually Upload Storyline 360 Courses Manually upload your courses to Review 360. This feature is helpful when publishing directly from Storyline 360 is blocked by a firewall or the published output needs to be edited before it’s shared with stakeholders. Manually Upload Video Versions Simplify your review process by creating new versions of videos that you’ve manually uploaded to Review 360. Version Management Control which versions of a project stakeholders see in Review 360 by using the hide and restore options. Unfurl Links in Collaboration Apps Make it easier for people to preview a Review 360 link when it’s shared in collaboration apps, like Slack. The link now expands to give your team a preview of the project’s title, author, and thumbnail image. Content Library 360 New Template Sets Synergy templates Vitality templates Essence templates New Characters Renita Craig Dante Pamela Charles Simone Jayla Eric Maya Jada Jamal Replay 360 Digitally Signed Executables Improve security with this update. All executables installed with Replay 360—such as lame.exe and encoder.exe—are digitally signed for better performance in highly secure environments. Studio 360 End of Flash Importing and Publishing Modernize your options for importing content and publishing courses with this update. Since Adobe discontinued Flash at the end of 2020, we removed Flash features, including the options to import Flash movies and publish Flash output, from Studio 360. Articulate 360 Teams Team Member Removal Options Avoid accidental content deletion with simplified options when removing a team member. Removal choices are now limited to transferring that member’s content or doing nothing. Manage Undelivered Invites Make identifying and resending invitation emails that bounce back easy with improvements to the team management console. Learn more. Articulate Training English Closed Captions View our on-demand videos and recorded training webinars with English closed captions. Articulate 360 Desktop App and Dashboard Browser-based Sign-in Experience Align with the latest security best practices by using your default web browser to sign in to the Articulate 360 desktop app. Learn more. Automatic Updates Get access to all the newest features and functions in Articulate 360 with automatic updates. Automatic updates are now enabled by default for all new and existing installations (unless your organization has disabled them). But you can always choose to opt out via your Articulate 360 desktop app preferences. Refreshed Articulate 360 Dashboard Discover helpful Articulate 360 resources—such as Rise 360 templates and Articulate 360 Training videos—with the new dashboard layout. That’s a lot of exciting ways to speed up your workflow and broaden what you can create! So be sure to check out any you might have missed when they launched and let us know in the comments which you’re enjoying most. Want to try out some of these features, but don’t have Articulate 360 just yet? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.3 Types of E-Learning Course Creation Apps
Understanding the basics of e-learning course creation apps—also called authoring apps—is just the beginning. If you’ve started researching what course creation apps are and what they do, you know they help you build learning experiences that are viewed on a computer, tablet, and/or mobile device. But, if you aren’t a course creator or you don’t have much experience in the e-learning world, you might be surprised to find out how many different types of apps exist. E-learning course creation apps have one basic thing in common: they all help you build online training. The specific app you choose will determine what types of courses you can create and what that process looks like. Let’s take a look at the three main types of e-learning course creation apps and what differentiates them. Web Applications This type of e-learning course creation app is hosted on a server and accessed through the web, so there’s no need to install anything on your computer. One major advantage of using a web app is that you can develop your content anywhere, anytime. All you need is a web browser and an internet connection. Web applications often have streamlined user interfaces, making them easier to use than their desktop counterparts. If you’re new to e-learning and feel a little intimidated by all the complex apps out there, web apps are the perfect place to start! Some web apps, like Rise 360, allow you to create fully responsive e-learning—courses where the content automatically reflows depending on the screen size—without any extra effort. In today’s mobile world, not having to worry about how your courses will look across devices makes your life a lot easier. Desktop Applications Desktop e-learning course creation applications, like Storyline 360, are installed on your computer and typically work without an internet connection. They tend to be more robust than web apps, offering a wider range of features allowing you to create more advanced interactions—like interactive 360° images— and customize your courses more extensively. Desktop apps often allow you to import PowerPoint-based training materials to speed up development, but they really shine when you’re looking to build more immersive learning experiences. PowerPoint Plug-ins These e-learning course creation apps are add-ons to Microsoft PowerPoint that allow you to add functionality—such as narration and quizzes—to your presentations. PowerPoint Plug-ins, like Studio 360, can be a good option when you want to use the same PowerPoint deck for both your online and in-person training because they allow you to simply add interactivity on top of what you already have in PowerPoint without converting it to another format. That way, you don’t have to keep two sets of training materials up-to-date. Wrap-Up Knowing the types of e-learning courses you plan to create is key to understanding what type of e-learning course creation app you need. If you know that you and your team plan on creating e-learning courses in a variety of structures, then you’ll want to look for a solution—like Articulate 360—that offers all the course creation apps you’ll need in one simple subscription. But, to truly build the best learning experience you’ll need more than the right apps—you’ll also need the right resources. Check out some helpful resources below that will kickstart your e-learning course creation process! Basic E-Learning Workflow and Design Process Instructional Design Basics for E-Learning Development 3 Essential Visual Design Concepts for E-Learning Audio Basics for Online Course Design What to Consider When Choosing E-Learning Course Creation Apps All the Examples You Need to Sell Articulate 360 to Your Boss 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.Understanding WCAG: A Quickstart Guide for E-Learning Developers
If you go looking for e-learning accessibility standards, you’ll see a certain four-letter acronym over and over again: WCAG. In this post, we’ll cover what WCAG is, why it’s important, and how you can apply it to your e-learning. What Is WCAG? Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a set of standards for making web content, including e-learning courses published to the web, more accessible. Learn more about accessibility in this article: What Is Accessible E-Learning? Unlike Section 508, which is part of a U.S. law, WCAG standards are optional best practices maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an organization focused on developing open web standards. While not a requirement, WCAG is an important tool for e-learning developers who want to build accessible courses. That seems simple enough, right? But things can get tricky when you start digging into WCAG documentation. In addition to this lengthy document that lays out the WCAG 2.0 standards, there’s another, equally lengthy document to help explain WCAG 2.1 standards! At a high level, WCAG has four sections: the principles of accessible design, the guidelines themselves, success criteria for levels of conformance, and specific implementation techniques. Let’s take a closer look. Accessibility Principles & Guidelines According to WCAG documentation, accessible web content follows four principles: it’s perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Twelve guidelines fall under these four principles—each with their own subguidelines. Here’s how each of these principles applies to e-learning, as well as a sample of some relevant guidelines that fall into each category. Perceivable Learners need to be able to access the information that’s presented. All parts of your course should be available to them regardless of their ability to see, hear, or touch. Guidelines for making your e-learning more perceivable include: adding alt-text to images, buttons, and other objects in your course making sure color is not the only visual means of communicating information providing learners with the ability to resize text Operable Learners need to be able to perform all of the actions required of them in the course. Guidelines for making your e-learning more operable include: providing keyboard-only navigation options giving learners the option to skip timed exercises making it possible to navigate your course in multiple ways avoiding course design elements that might cause seizures, such as flashing lights using section headings to organize content Understandable Learners need to be able to understand both the content of the course and how to navigate the user interface. Guidelines for making your e-learning more understandable include: making it possible for screen readers to determine the language used in your course providing learners with good instructions when requesting their input building consistent navigation and identification throughout your course Robust Course content must make sense to assistive technologies such as screen readers. Guidelines for making your e-learning more robust include: publishing courses to well-formatted HTML output assigning names, roles, and values to all elements in your course Conformance Levels Each of the WCAG guidelines, such as the ones listed above, is organized into one of three levels: A, AA, or AAA. It’s a common misunderstanding that Level A guidelines are “good,” Level AA guidelines are “better,” and Level AAA guidelines are “the best”; in reality, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. The WCAG level system accounts for all the factors one might consider when prioritizing the list of guidelines, including their goals and any logistical, technical, and resource limitations they might have. Here’s how to think about the guidelines at each level. Level A Guidelines This is the low-hanging fruit. As a best practice, all of your e-learning should meet Level A guidelines. These guidelines are easy to implement, and doing so makes your e-learning accessible to a broad range of folks in different demographics. It’s a win-win! Level AA Guidelines These are more specialized, and trickier to implement. Applying these guidelines affects a smaller group, but the changes have a big impact on those individuals. You should strive to make your e-learning meet Level AA guidelines as much as you’re able. Level AAA Guidelines These can be tough (and sometimes expensive!) to implement, and the changes impact a very specific group. Whether you decide to follow Level AAA guidelines really depends on the needs of your learners and organization. How Can I Build WCAG-Compliant E-Learning with Articulate 360 Apps? When you understand which guidelines are important to implement, it’s easy to make your Storyline 360 and Studio 360 courses WCAG compliant. And to make it even easier, we created these helpful resources that walk you through the some best practices: Storyline 360: How to Design an Accessible Course Rise 360: How to Design an Accessible Course And if you want to dig into the details of how our apps meet WCAG requirements at the A and AA levels, check out these resources: Storyline 360: Accessibility Conformance Report Rise 360: Accessibility Conformance Report All of these authoring apps are available with a subscription to Articulate 360. You can read our Articulate 360 accessibility FAQs for more details. More Resources Want to deepen your understanding of WCAG even further? Check out these helpful resources: W3.org: WCAG 4 Principles Karl Grove: Understanding WCAG Level Articulate: 6 Best Practices for Designing Accessible E-Learning And remember to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and come back to E-Learning Heroes for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.Multimedia Principle: Adding Graphics to Words Improves Learning
Many instructional designers rely more heavily on their technical capabilities and intuitive beliefs than on research-based principles when creating e-learning courses. And though it’s totally natural to let your skills and intuitions guide you, how can you be sure they’re leading you in the right direction? Take the topic at hand: do graphics improve learning? Perhaps you instinctively feel like people learn better from a combination of words and graphics than from words alone. Well, the evidence presented by Mayer and Clark in their book E-Learning and the Science of Instruction would tend to agree with you! According to Mayer and Clark, learners who took a multimedia lesson that included a combination of words and graphics—defined as illustrations, photos, charts, graphs, maps, animations, or videos—performed 89 percent better than those who took the same course with text alone. Sounds like a good reason to do away with text-only slides, right? Well, yes and no. Before you rush to fill your screens with graphics, it’s important to note that when it comes to learning, not all graphics are equally effective. Let’s take a closer look at what types of graphics contribute to better learning outcomes. Graphics That Improve Learning If you’d like to add graphics to your course in order to improve learning outcomes, you should focus on visuals that show the relationship between concepts, organize the material into categories, illustrate change over time, or turn abstract concepts into concrete diagrams. This includes tables, graphs, maps, time-lapses, videos, and animations. For example, if you’re creating a course about how telecommunication networks function, you might decide to create a diagram like the one below to help learners visualize the process: Click to see the interactive version. For more concrete examples of graphics that help learners understand material, check out this article: 7 Ways to Use Graphics for Learning. Graphics That Don’t Improve Learning I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone that decorative graphics don’t actually help learners better understand the course material. That being said, learners did report enjoying courses more when decorative images were included, even if they didn’t necessarily help them learn more, so those kinds of images aren’t without value. The same goes for representational graphics—or graphics that portray a single object—even if they’re related to the course content. Say you’re creating a course on the flu vaccine and include a picture of a syringe. While that image is relevant, since it relates back to the topic, it’s not actually helping your learners better understand the material. The Bottom Line Only graphics that help learners better understand or organize the course material—rather than simply making it look nice—impact learning outcomes. That doesn’t mean you should cut out any other images, since learners seem to appreciate them when they’re used appropriately, but it’s important to realize that they’re not contributing to the learning process. If you’re interested in learning more about the multimedia principle as well as the other evidence-based guidelines for e-learning design, grab a copy of E-Learning and the Science of Instruction, which is where we got the information for this article. Short on time? We’ve summarized a few of the other key points presented in their book in the following articles: Personalization Principle: Speaking to Instead of at Your Learners Redundancy Principle: Should You Duplicate Narrated Text On Screen? Contiguity Principle: Keep Graphics & Related Text Together Coherence Principle: Less Material for Better Learning 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.Making Built-In PowerPoint Templates Your Own
Here you are again at the beginning of a new e-learning project, staring at a blank slide and wondering how on earth you’re going to come up with yet another unique look and feel for your course. I’ve been there, and have just the solution to your blank-slide woes: built-in templates! Before you groan, hear me out. I’m not saying you should take these templates and use them as is, but rather take them and make them your own. Not sure where to start? Check out this easy six-step process and you’ll be on the road to success! 1. Choose a Built-In Template Start by selecting a built-in template whose general background appeals to you. Try to disregard the colors, as you can easily adapt them. Remember, you can change any aspect of the template that you don’t like. 2. Define the Theme Colors Once you’ve selected a starting built-in template, you’ll want to adapt the colors. To do so, simply open the slide master via the View tab, and click on Create New Theme Colors in the Colors drop-down menu. Depending on the project, you may or may not have a predefined color palette. If you do, go ahead and use it to create your new theme colors. If you don’t, try doing a key-word search on the internet to see what colors others associate with the topic of your course. Still not inspired? Play around with this color wheel to see which colors look nice together, or check out the examples hub on E-Learning Heroes. Once you’ve adapted the theme colors to your liking, choose a name for your new color palette and click Save. The default template is then automatically adjusted according to the new theme colors. If you like your new template as is, you can stop here. If not, you have two options: go back and change the colors in your theme or manually change the colors of the background objects. 3. Add, Delete, or Hide Background Objects At this stage, you can choose to add, delete, or hide certain objects to achieve a slightly different look. I recommend activating the Selection Pane to easily hide or unhide objects on the screen without permanently deleting them. Notice that when you click on an object on the screen, it is highlighted in the Selection Pane. In this example, I’d like to hide all the background objects so that my background is a solid color. To do so, I simply select the group of objects and click on the eye icon in the Selection Pane. Note that the Title Slide Layout is generally slightly different than the rest of the slide layouts. If you make changes to this layout, be sure to go back and apply those changes to the main slide master (the top slide) as well, so that it is automatically applied to the rest of the slide layouts. 4. Change the Background Style The next thing you can do to adapt your template is to change the background style. You can either choose one of the default options or click on Format Background to personalize the background style. Make sure the master slide (the top slide) is selected when you change the background style, so your changes are automatically applied to all the slide layouts. 5. Choose the Theme Font(s) Once you’re done editing the background graphics, you can move on to text formatting. Here, you have two options: choose from the default font themes or create your own. The advantage of creating your own is that you can choose a different font for title text and body text. For more tips on choosing the right fonts for your course, I encourage you to read these articles: 5 Questions to Ask When Choosing Fonts for E-Learning 5 Important Elements of Typography My 4 Favorite Free Fonts for E-Learning As soon as you save, the changes are applied to your template. 6. Test Drive Your New Template Now that you’re all done, go ahead and close the Slide Master view and try adding some actual content to your new template. When you do so, you may find that you want to make some minor adjustments. For example, you might find the size is too large or the background graphics don’t give you enough space for your content. No problem! Simply go back to the Slide Master view and tweak your template. I recommend doing this for a couple of slides before applying your new template to your entire course. This will allow you to get a feel for how well your template fits your content—without waiting until you’re 40 slides in to realize you need a different template. And there you have it: in a matter of minutes, a totally different-looking template created from a built-in PowerPoint template! Next time you’re feeling uninspired, remember that those built-in templates can easily be adapted to fit your needs. And the end result will be so different that no one has to know you started with a template. If you like my template, you’re in luck! You can download it here. Here are some other good resources to check out if you’re new to course design or if you’d simply like to take your skills to the next level: How Do I Choose a Design for My E-Learning Course? Your Ultimate Guide to Choosing Graphics for E-Learning 5 Graphic Design Mistakes Newbies Make and How to Avoid Them 5 Ways to Look Like an E-Learning Design Pro (Even If You’re Not!) Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter. And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.Save Time with this E-Learning Project Troubleshooting Checklist
E-Learning Heroes is handy for getting quick tech support for your Articulate 360 projects when you need it. But what if I told you there’s an even faster way to troubleshoot the most common technical problems, a checklist that takes just a few moments and doesn’t require you to be super-techie, open a support ticket, or even draft a forum post? Next time your project hits a snag, save yourself some time and frustration by checking off these three items: Item #1: Your Project File’s Location If you’re working in an office or corporate setting, odds are your computer is part of a group of computers all sharing access to the same computer or server on a network. If this arrangement sounds familiar to you, you likely have access to a network drive—that is, a drive where files are stored and shared with your coworkers. A local drive, on the other hand, is a disk drive that physically resides on your computer and isn’t part of another computer on your network. For example, most computers running Microsoft Windows have a local drive known as the C: drive. Creating new projects or editing existing projects from a network drive rather than a local drive, or publishing your projects to a network drive rather than a local drive, can lead to troublesome technical glitches like file corruption, crashes, or an inability to save changes. Why can working from a network drive cause these troubles? The short answer is that it introduces more complexity. Here’s how I like to think of it: Imagine you’re storing a file folder in a file cabinet beneath your desk. Pretty quick and easy to access, isn’t it? And if something changes about the contents of the file, or the file folder goes missing, you’re the one in control—not many people have access to your file and there aren’t many places it could be. Now imagine that you’re storing a file folder in a colleague’s file cabinet across the country. While storing it elsewhere saves you some precious drawer space, sending the file folder back and forth introduces more variables into the mix. For instance: what’s going on with the file when you’re not using it? Where is it being stored, and under what conditions? How long will it take your colleague to send it to you? What if some of the file’s contents are missing when you get it? Or what if it’s lost along the way? What this means for you and your projects is: When trouble strikes, make sure you’re reducing the complexity by saving and accessing project files from a local drive and not a network drive. If you need to place a copy of your project on a network drive or on a USB drive for backup, versioning control, or collaboration with coworkers, do that only after you’ve closed Storyline or Studio. Try to avoid reopening the project again until you’ve copied it back to your local hard drive. For more tips on creating, editing, and publishing Articulate projects to your local hard drive, check out this support article. Item #2: Your Software’s Update Status We’re constantly working hard to improve our products, so updates are released pretty regularly. Keeping your software updated ensures that you have all the latest and greatest performance improvements and bug fixes. If you have Articulate 360, you’ll be notified of updates via the desktop app. If you’re using a perpetual version of our software and you have the “Check for Updates” option enabled, your Articulate software will automatically notify you when a new version of the software is available. However, if you’re not sure if this option is enabled, it’s super-easy to manually check for updates. First, go to the help ribbon in Storyline, Studio, or Replay and select Check for Updates. Once you’ve clicked Check for Updates you’ll be prompted to either download new updates or we’ll confirm that you’re running the latest version of our software. You can also use the help ribbon to quickly access the software-specific forum hub. Notices about newly released updates are typically “pinned” or anchored to the top of the discussion list. Pro Tip: Each time you install a free update, you’ll be prompted to reactivate your software. This may seem like a headache, but all you really have to do is click Activate to complete the process because the software remembers your serial number. Item #3: Your Published Project’s Location Just as the location of your working project files can impact how it behaves when you’re creating and editing a project, the location of your published content can also influence how it behaves. If your published content isn’t working the way you anticipated, take a second look at where and how you’re accessing it. Published content should always be accessed and tested from the intended environment, as described in this support article. For example, if you published your project for the web, you should upload it to a web server for testing; and if you published it for an LMS, upload your content to an LMS or to a free service such as SCORM Cloud for testing. Also, check to ensure that you’re loading all of the published project output files to your web server or LMS, and not just the story.html or presenter.html files. Pro Tip: If your intent is for content to be viewed locally, try publishing for CD and then double-click the launch_story.exe file from the resulting output files. Often local security restrictions on your computer, web browser, and Flash player can cause certain features to fail. Next Steps What happens if you’ve checked all of these items off of your troubleshooting list and things still aren’t working? That’s where the appropriate product-specific forum can help you crowdsource your sleuthing efforts. Before you draft a new forum post, it’s a good idea to start with a quick search to see if anyone else has had the same problem you’re experiencing. For tips on power-searching, check out this handy how-to article. And if a search doesn’t turn up what you need, it’s time to draft a new forum post describing the problem in detail. In the body of your post, it’s helpful to verify that you’ve completed this checklist—just so we don’t ask you to start over at Item #1. It’s also a good idea to have any of the following attached to your post: The problem slides from your project file (.story file or a Presenter package) A video capture of the unwanted/unexpected behaviors you’re experiencing Static screenshot(s) of the unwanted/unexpected behaviors For more pointers on writing discussion posts that get quick answers, check out this helpful article. Summary Technology can be a little confounding at times, but with these basic troubleshooting tips, you can save yourself some time by diagnosing many of the most common technical issues on your own. Even better: when you can help us understand what’s not contributing to the problem, the ELH community can help you identify the real culprit a whole lot faster! Looking for even more troubleshooting tips? Check out these recent articles: The Secret to LMS Debugging How to Troubleshoot Your LMS with SCORM Cloud. What does your troubleshooting checklist look like? Share your tips and feedback in the comments below. Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial. And subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice sent directly to your inbox. If you have questions, please share them in the comments.The Fastest & Easiest Way to Create E-Learning Scenarios
These days, most e-learning developers want to find ways to move beyond linear click-and-read courses. One of the best ways to break out of the “tell ’em then test ’em” mode is to incorporate scenarios into your courses. When you present your learners with scenarios and challenge them to make decisions, you are asking them to apply what they’ve learned in a real-world context, which helps them gauge their learning. If you’re new to building scenarios, Tom Kuhlmann’s Three-C Model of Scenario Building shows you the three simple elements you need for creating a scenario: Challenges, Choices, and Consequences. Basically, you start every scenario by challenging your learners’ understanding with a realistic situation. Then you provide choices that allow them to make a decision that ends with a consequence, providing them with appropriate feedback. There are a lot of options for building scenario interactions, but none of them are faster or easier than using an Engage interaction. For example, let me show you how well suited an Engage Tabs interaction is to building scenarios. First, since you can present an introductory screen at the beginning of any Engage interaction, it’s the perfect place to trot out your scenario details. The next step is to label the tabs with the choices available to learners. Then, all that’s left is to provide the consequence for each choice in the associated content area. Remember, you can include characters and other multimedia here as well. In a matter of minutes, you’ll have a visually appealing scenario that looks something like this. View published scenario The Tabs interaction isn’t the only one that works well for scenarios. You should also check out the Folders, Quick Choice, and other interactions to see what works best for your content. Next time you want to include a scenario in your online training, be sure to check out how easy it is with the Three-C Model and Articulate Engage. I’d love to hear how you’re using scenarios in your projects. Or, if you aren’t, why not? If you want to try this yourself but don’t have Studio ’13, no problem. Just sign up for a fully functional, free 30-day trial. 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.
