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E-Learning Podcast: 10 Things Course Designers Should Know About AI #526
This week, your challenge is to record audio responses to the questions listed below. The questions highlight where AI is making an impact, where it still has some growing to do, and how e-learning designers are experimenting with it in their projects.
DavidAnderson
6 hours ago Place E-Learning Challenges
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Audio Translation
Hi everyone, I have a question: will a translate audio feature be added to Localization? I'm testing it during the trial period and just noticed that it only translates the text on screen, not the audio, so we have to type or re-record the text in the new language, which is quite time consuming. Thank you
Solved
PatriciaNunes-d
10 hours ago Place Localization
322Views
1like
11Comments
AI Assistant: Producing Highly Realistic Audio
As a course author, you want to do more than just present information—you want to create multi-sensory e-learning experiences that resonate with learners. Using sound creatively can help you get there. AI Assistant’s text-to-speech and sound effects features let you create highly realistic AI-generated voices and sound effects for more immersive and accessible content. Originally, both of these features could only be accessed in Storyline 360. However, as of the July 2025 update, AI Assistant in Rise 360 can generate text-to-speech narration. Visit this user guide to get started creating AI-generated narrations in Rise 360. In Storyline 360, these features can be accessed from the Insert Audio dropdown in the AI Assistant menu within the ribbon. Find them under the Home or Insert tab when you’re in slide view or from the AI Assistant side panel as quick action buttons for added convenience. Bring Narration to Life with AI-generated Voices If you’ve ever used classic text-to-speech, you probably wished the voices sounded less, well, robotic. AI Assistant’s text-to-speech brings narration to life with contextually aware AI-generated voices that sound more natural—and human! Check out the difference in quality between a standard voice, neural voice, and AI-generated voice by playing the text-to-speech examples below. Standard Voice Your browser does not support the audio element. Neural Voice Your browser does not support the audio element. AI-generated Voice Your browser does not support the audio element. To get started, click the Insert Audio icon in the AI Assistant menu to open the Generate AI Audio dialog box. A library of AI-generated voices—which you can filter by Gender, Age, and Accent—displays under the Voices tab. The voices also have descriptions like “deep,” “confident,” “crisp,” “intense,” and “soothing” and categories that can help you determine their ideal use cases, from news broadcasts to meditation, or even ASMR. Find these qualities under the voice’s name, and use the play button to preview the voice. Currently, there are 52 pre-made voices to choose from, and you can mark your favorites by clicking the heart icon. This way, you can easily access your preferred voices without having to scroll through the list. Toggle the View option to Favorites to find all your favorite voices, or In project to see voices used in the current project. Once you’ve decided on a voice, click the button labeled Use to switch to the Text-to-Speech tab. Your chosen voice is already pre-selected. Next, enter your script in the text box provided or click the add from slide notes link to copy notes from your slide. The script can be a maximum of 5,000 characters. For accessibility, leave the Generate closed captions box checked—AI Assistant will generate closed captions automatically. You can instantly determine if your text-to-speech narration has closed captions by the CC label that appears next to each output. Find More Voices in the Voice Library In addition to the pre-made voices, you also have access to an extended voice library with thousands of ultrarealistic, AI-generated voices that can be filtered by age, gender, and use case. Discover the right voice for your content by clicking the Voice Library button on the right under the My Voices tab. Check out this article to learn how to use the voice library. Note: Pre-made voices might lose compatibility and may not work well with newer voice models. Voices in the voice library might also disappear after their removal notice period ends or if the creator chooses to remove them. If this occurs, your generated narration will still play but can no longer be edited. Switch to a different voice if you need to modify an existing narration created with a voice that’s no longer supported. Adjust the Voice Settings Unlike classic text-to-speech, the AI-generated voices in AI Assistant’s text-to-speech can be customized for a tailored voice performance. The Model setting lets you choose from three different options: v3 (beta) - Most expressive, high emotional range, and contextual understanding in over 70 languages. Allows a maximum of 3,000 characters. Note that this model is actively being developed and is available only in Rise 360. Functionalities might change, or you might encounter unexpected behavior as we continue to improve it. For best results, check out some prompting techniques below. Multilingual v2 (default model) - Highly stable and exceptionally accurate lifelike speech with support for 29 languages. Allows a maximum of 10,000 characters. Flash v2.5 - Slightly less stable, but can generate faster with support for 32 languages. Allows a maximum of 40,000 characters. The setting for Stability controls the balance between the voice’s steadiness and randomness. The Similarity setting determines how closely the AI should adhere to the original voice when attempting to replicate it. The defaults are set to 0.50 for the stability slider and 0.75 for the similarity slider, but you can play around with these settings to find the right balance for your content. Additional settings include Style exaggeration, which amplifies the style of the original voice, and Speaker boost, which enhances the similarity between synthesized speech and the voice. Note that if either of those settings is adjusted, generating your speech will take longer. Note: Some voices in the Multilingual v2 model tend to have inconsistent volume—fading out toward the end—when generating lengthy clips. This is a known issue with the underlying model, and our AI subprocessor for text-to-speech is working to address it. In the meantime, we suggest the following workarounds: Use a different voice Switch to the Flash v2.5 model Increase the voice’s stability Manually break your text into smaller chunks to generate shorter clips Do I Need to Use SSML? AI Assistant has limited support for speech synthesis markup language (SSML) because AI-generated voices are designed to understand the relationship between words and adjust delivery accordingly. If you need to manually control pacing, you can add a pause. The most consistent way to do that is by inserting the syntax <break time="1.5s" /> into your script. This creates an exact and natural pause in the speech. For example: With their keen senses <break time="1.5s" /> cats are skilled hunters. Use seconds to describe a break of up to three seconds in length. You can try a simple dash - or em-dash — to insert a brief pause or multiple dashes for a longer pause. Ellipsis ... will also sometimes work to add a pause between words. However, these options may not work consistently, so we recommend using the syntax above for consistency. Just keep in mind that an excessive number of break tags can potentially cause instability. Prompting Techniques for v3 (beta) The v3 (beta) model introduces emotional control via audio tags, enabling voices to laugh, whisper, be sarcastic, or show curiosity, among other options. The following table lists various tags you can use to control vocal delivery and emotional expression, as well as to add background sounds and effects. It also includes some experimental tags for creative uses. Voice and emotion Sounds and effects Experimental [laughs], [laughs harder], [starts laughing], [wheezing] [whispers] [sighs], [exhales] [sarcastic], [curious], [excited], [crying], [snorts], [mischievously] Example: [whispers] Don’t look now, but I think they heard us. [gunshot], [applause], [clapping], [explosion] [swallows], [gulps] Example: [applause] Well, that went better than expected. [explosion] Never mind. [strong X accent] (replace X with desired accent) [sings], [woo] Example: [strong French accent] Zat is not what I ‘ad in mind, non non non. Aside from the audio tags, punctuation also impacts delivery. Ellipses (...) add pauses, capitalization emphasizes specific words or phrases, and standard punctuation mimics natural speech rhythm. For example: “It was VERY successful! … [starts laughing] Can you believe it?” Tips: Use audio tags that match the voice’s personality. A calm, meditative voice won’t shout, and a high-energy voice won’t whisper convincingly. Very short prompts can lead to inconsistent results. For more consistent, focused output, we suggest prompts over 250 characters. Some experimental tags may be less consistent across voices. Test thoroughly before use. Combine multiple tags for complex emotional delivery. Try different combinations to find what works best for your selected voice. The above list is simply a starting point; more effective tags may exist. Experiment with combining emotional states and actions to find what works best for your use case. Use natural speech, proper punctuation, and clear emotional cues to get the best results. Multilingual Voices Expand Your Reach Another compelling benefit of AI-generated text-to-speech is the ability to bridge language gaps, allowing you to connect with international audiences. With support for over 70 languages depending on the model—including some with multiple accents and dialects—AI Assistant’s text-to-speech helps your content resonate with a global audience. All you have to do is type or paste your script in the supported language you want AI Assistant to use. (Even though the voice description notes a specific accent or language, AI Assistant will generate the narration in the language used in your script.) Note that some voices tend to work best with certain accents or languages, so feel free to experiment with different voices to find the best fit for your needs. The table below provides a quick rundown of supported languages. Available in v3 (beta), Multilingual v2, and Flash v2.5: Arabic (Saudi Arabia) Arabic (UAE) Bulgarian Chinese Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English (Australia) English (Canada) English (UK) English (USA) Filipino Finnish French (Canada) French (France) German Greek Hindi Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Malay Polish Portuguese (Brazil) Portuguese (Portugal) Romanian Russian Slovak Spanish (Mexico) Spanish (Spain) Swedish Tamil Turkish Ukrainian Available in v3 (beta) and Flash v2.5: Hungarian Norwegian Vietnamese Available only in v3 (beta): Afrikaans (afr) Armenian (hye) Assamese (asm) Azerbaijani (aze) Belarusian (bel) Bengali (ben) Bosnian (bos) Catalan (cat) Cebuano (ceb) Chichewa (nya) Estonian (est) Galician (glg) Georgian (kat) Gujarati (guj) Hausa (hau) Hebrew (heb) Icelandic (isl) Irish (gle) Javanese (jav) Kannada (kan) Kazakh (kaz) Kirghiz (kir) Latvian (lav) Lingala (lin) Lithuanian (lit) Luxembourgish (ltz) Macedonian (mkd) Malayalam (mal) Mandarin Chinese (cmn) Marathi (mar) Nepali (nep) Pashto (pus) Persian (fas) Punjabi (pan) Serbian (srp) Sindhi (snd) Slovenian (slv) Somali (som) Swahili (swa) Telugu (tel) Thai (tha) Urdu (urd) Welsh (cym) Create Sound Effects Using Prompts Sound effects that align with your theme and content can highlight important actions or feedback, like clicking a button or choosing a correct answer, offering a more engaging and effective e-learning experience. With AI Assistant’s sound effects, you can now use prompts to easily create nearly any sound imaginable. No more wasting time scouring the web for pre-made sounds that may cost extra! Start creating high-quality sound effects by going to the AI Assistant menu in the ribbon under the Home or Insert tab. Then, click the lower half of the Insert Audio icon, and choose Sound Effects. (You can also access it from the Audio dropdown within the Insert tab. Simply select Sound Effects under the AI Audio option.) In the text box, describe the sound effect you want and choose a duration. You can adjust the Prompt influence slider to give AI Assistant more or less creative license in generating the sound. Since AI Assistant understands natural language, sound effects can be created using anything from a simple prompt like “a single mouse click” to a very complex one that describes multiple sounds or a sequence of sounds in a specific order. Just note you have a maximum of 450 characters to describe the sound you want to generate. Play the following audio samples to listen to sound effects created using a simple prompt and a complex one. Your browser does not support the audio element. Prompt: A single mouse click Your browser does not support the audio element. Prompt: Dogs barking, then lightning strikes You can also adjust the Duration—how long the sound effect plays—up to a maximum of 22 seconds. For example, if your prompt is “barking dog” and you set the duration to 10 seconds, you’ll get continuous barking, but a duration of two seconds is one quick bark. Adjusting the Prompt Influence slider to the right makes AI Assistant strictly adhere to your prompt, while sliding it to the left allows more free interpretation. Pro tip: You can instantly determine if your sound effect has closed captions by the CC label that appears next to each output. Some Pro Terms to Know Using audio terminology—specialized vocabulary that audio experts use in their work—can help improve your prompts and produce even more dynamic sound effects. Here are a few examples: Braam: A deep, resonant, and often distorted bass sound used in media, particularly in trailers, to create a sense of tension, power, or impending doom. Whoosh: A quick, swooshing sound often used to emphasize fast motion, transitions, or dramatic moments. Impact: A sharp, striking noise used to signify a collision, hit, or sudden forceful contact, often to highlight a moment of action or emphasis. Glitch: A short, jarring, and usually digital noise that mimics a malfunction or distortion, commonly used to convey errors. Foley: The process of recreating and recording everyday sound effects like movements and object sounds in sync with the visuals of a film, videos, or other media. Here’s something fun to try! Generate a 3-second sound effect using the prompt “studio quality, sound designed whoosh and braam impact.” Increasing the duration may produce better sound effects but will also create more dead air towards the end. Pro tip: Onomatopoeias—words like “buzz,” “boom,” “click,” and “pop” that imitate natural sounds—are also important sound effects terms. Use them in your prompts to create more realistic sound effects. Video Tutorials Want to learn more before getting started? Check out our video tutorials for additional guidance on using AI Assistant to generate text-to-speech and sound effects. Create AI-generated Text-to-Speech Create AI-generated Sound Effects Articulate 360 Training also has additional video tutorials on using other AI Assistant features. Use AI Assistant features in Rise 360 Use AI Assistant features in Storyline 360 You must be logged in to your Articulate 360 account to watch the videos. Don’t have an account yet? Sign up for a free trial now!
JohnreyLandoay
4 days ago Place User Guides
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Storyline 360: Adding Videos
In this user guide, you'll learn how to enhance your Storyline 360 courses with videos from files and websites. (To add videos from Content Library 360, see this user guide.) Adding a Video from a File Adding a Video from a Website Making Videos Accessible Adding a Video from a File Note: Videos will be automatically synchronized with the slide and controlled by the timeline. Here’s how to insert a video from a file: First, do either of the following: In Slide View, go to the Insert tab on the ribbon, click the Video drop-down arrow, and choose Video from File. Or, simply drag a video file from your computer and drop it on your course slide. In Form View, go to the Home tab on the ribbon, click the Media drop-down arrow, and choose Video from File. Browse to the video you want to use and click Open. MP4 videos are natively supported in Storyline 360. The following file formats get converted to MP4 in Storyline 360: 3G2 3GP ASF AVI DV M1V M2V M4V MOV MPE MPEG MPG QT WMV Tip: If your video placeholder is hard to see because it shows up as a white, black, or transparent rectangle in Storyline 360, right-click it and choose Set Poster Frame. Then browse for an image file to use as the video placeholder. Adding a Video from a Website Storyline 360 makes it easy to embed videos that are hosted on popular websites such as YouTube and Vimeo. Note: Website videos play independently of the slide and aren’t controlled by the timeline. In Slide View, go to the Insert tab on the ribbon, click the Video drop-down arrow, and select Video from Website. Copy the video embed code from the hosting website and paste it into the Insert Video from Website box. Click Insert. Making Videos Accessible Video accessibility fosters inclusivity and boosts comprehension for all learners. Here are a few tips to make videos accessible: Turn off autoplay. Video content that autoplays can disrupt learning and interfere with assistive technologies. Adjust video properties to prevent autoplay and enable playback speed control. (1.4.2 Audio Control). Enable accessible video controls. Turn on the accessible video controls in Storyline 360's modern player for a more inclusive and flexible learning environment. (2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide). Use closed captions. Closed captions help all learners fully engage with and comprehend your content. You can import or create closed captions right in Storyline 360. Position captions at the top or bottom of your slides and customize the foreground and background colors to maximize readability. (1.2.2 Captions [Prerecorded]). Provide synchronized video transcripts. Synchronized video transcripts can be automatically generated from closed captions. Transcripts should include descriptions of narration, sound effects, and other audiovisual elements. (1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative [Prerecorded]). Use audio descriptions where necessary. Include audio descriptions that narrate important visual details not conveyed through dialogue. This practice gives learners with visual disabilities access to all the necessary information and allows them to understand the content thoroughly. (1.2.5 Audio Description [Prerecorded]). Keep your language simple. Use plain language in your video content and descriptions. Straightforward and clear language helps your audience easily read and understand the information. Avoid distracting videos. Stick with non-flashing videos. Content that flashes, blinks, or flickers more than three times per second is distracting and can trigger seizures in learners with photosensitive epilepsy. (2.3.1 Three Flashes or Below Threshold). You Might Also Want to Explore: Adding Content Library 360 Videos Editing Videos Adjusting Video Properties
KatieRiggio
2 months ago Place User Guides
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#515 - The Interactive Techsmith Audiate Tutorial
I this tutorial I used the following tools: Articulate Rise and Storyline Techsmith Audiate, Camtasia 2025, Snagit 2025, Screencast Pro embeds in Rise. Copilot Pro I am having a temporary Articulate hiatus due to funding issues, But if anyone wants to contact me - use my mailto:campbell7900@gmail.com My app is on Articulate Review at - https://360.articulate.com/review/content/7df55a45-2794-4122-9c8f-7a5b3853d970/review Thanks Richard Campbell
RichardCampb955
2 months ago Place Audio for Active Listening #515
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Alien Diplomacy: Decode the Tone (Challenge #515)
Challenge 515 – Audio as the Key to Understanding. (Better late than never) In this retro-futuristic e-learning experience, learners step into the role of Earth’s first ambassador to the Galactic Council. Their mission? To interpret alien communication not just by words, but by tone, emotion, and pacing. Alien Diplomacy Using custom audio, stylized visuals, and interactive scenarios, learners must decode subtle emotional cues from alien delegates—including crystalline strategists and reptilian ritualists—to make the right diplomatic decisions. *Unfortunately, I don't have access to Storyline AI assistant, so the audios for Aliens delegation were generated using https://luvvoice.com/ program, which is user friendly, but with limited abilities for tones. Visuals were mostly AI generated with some further adjustments. I hope you will have fun playing this little game, and will appreciate your comments and suggestions.
Ekaterina_V
3 months ago Place Audio for Active Listening #515
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Click. Listen. Learn. Smarter Workplace Security
This interactive sample course combines audio narration with clickable content to keep learners engaged and informed. Office Entry - Learn to spot common entry risks through a quick, interactive lesson. Server Room - Explore a 360° server room with voice-guided tips and clickable hotspots. Click the link to get started with smarter security training. https://www.swiftelearningservices.com/workplace-security-training-elearning-challenge-515/
SyedAmjad-Ali
3 months ago Place Audio for Active Listening #515
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Ear Training for Nature Lovers
For this week’s challenge, I created a playful little interaction called "Whose song is it?". Built in Articulate Storyline 360, the project invites learners to listen closely and identify the unique songs of six common European birds. It was inspired by a friend who’s passionate about birdwatching and always pointing out who’s singing in the trees! This was a fun and focused build that took about 2 hours to put together. It’s a simple sound-matching game designed to train your ear, bring attention to detail, and hopefully spark a bit of appreciation for nature’s original soundtrack. Hope you will like it! https://360.articulate.com/review/content/a7c3a930-c098-4f37-ab15-d3d025580875/review
ErikaGrendel970
3 months ago Place Audio for Active Listening #515
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Using Audio to Encourage Active Listening in E-Learning #515
This week, your e-learning challenge is to create a learning experience where audio is the key to understanding. That means focusing not just on the words, but also on the tone, emotion, and feeling behind them.
DavidAnderson
3 months ago Place E-Learning Challenges
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What's that, Ozzy?! - A "Guess the Lyrics" Exercise
More of a tribute than anything to the musical giant that was Ozzy Osbourne. This small project combines traditional audio tracks, sound effects, and video to create a moody, heavy metal atmosphere, while also providing a chance for viewers to assess their active listening skills. RIP Ozzy (07.22.2025) Demo link: What's that Ozzy?! - A "Guess the Lyrics" Exercise
DanielCañaveral
3 months ago Place Audio for Active Listening #515
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