Ask Your Learners to Prove They’re Learning with NEXTCHA #20
Next buttons are gatekeepers If there's one area in course design that gets abused more than others, it's the Next button. Whether you’re locking, hiding, disabling, or disguising it, the next button is the gatekeeper to course content. Learners click the Next button repeatedly to move from one slide to the next. That’s a lot of repetition that could be applied to learning rather than navigating. Reinforcing content through repetition Course designers know how important repetition is to learning. So do advertisers. That’s why advertisers are redesigning CAPTCHA boxes into brand reinforcement opportunities. Instead of using CAPTCHA as a gatekeeper to verify the user is a human, marketers are leveraging CAPTCHA to reinforce brand message and recall through repetition. Opportunities for course designers Course designers can use apply similar strategies to assist learning recall by making the Next button memorable. Let’s say a 30-slide course contains 30 Next buttons where each button is locked until the learner views the complete slide. That’s 30 mouse clicks to navigate from one slide to the next… Or it’s 30 opportunities for the learner to summarize or practice a slide’s key concepts. CAPTCHA + Next button = NEXTCHA Two types of NEXTCHA activities for e-learning Here are two ideas for incorporating NEXTCHA activities in your online courses. Both examples leverage text entry fields to capture learner feedback. Post-Roll NEXTCHA The most popular solution that asks learners to summarize a slide or series of slides before moving on. If a learner can’t answer correctly, they’re asked to repeat the slide. View the Post-Roll NEXTCHA example Pre-Roll NEXTCHA This variation gives learners the opportunity to test out of a slide by answering the slide’s key content at the beginning. View the Pre-Roll NEXTCHA example Final note about using NEXTCHA in your courses Using NEXTCHA for every slide is just as obnoxious as locking the Next button on every slide. NEXTCHA won’t make a boring course more engaging. The key is to look for meaningful ways to incorporate NEXTCHA into your course designs. If that sounds easier said than done, then we have a great e-learning challenge this week! Challenge of the week This week your challenge is to build your own NEXTCHA solutions that help reinforce learning content while preventing learners from mindlessly clicking the Next buttons. In the challenge, you don’t have to limit NEXTCHA to text entry fields, but please limit your demos to text-based interactions. Tools You can use Articulate Storyline, Quizmaker ‘13, or any other tool that enables text entry fields. If you only have PowerPoint, no problem! Just mockup your NEXTCHA ideas so we can understand how you’re using NEXTCHA. Resources and templates To help you get started, check out these free NEXTCHA templates built in Articulate Storyline: NEXTCHA templates: NEXTCHA: Blue Theme NEXTCHA: Tan Theme Blogs and discussions: Dump the Next Button: Increase Learner Engagement with NEXTCHA Increase Learner Engagement with NEXTCHA Find Inspiration with These E-Learning Design Tips & Free Templates Free templates: 5 Gate Screens Weekly E-Learning Challenge: Gate Screens in Online Courses How to Transform Static Content into Interactive Knowledge Checks Technical tutorials: Create a Freeform Question Converting an Existing Slide to a Freeform Interaction Adding Data Entry Fields Adding Text Variables Text Entry Fields Last week’s screencasts in e-learning challenge Before embarking on your NEXTCHAllenge, check out these screencasting gems shared by your fellow community members: David Fair proved he wasn’t afraid of screencasting with this scary Walking Dead effect he recreated in PowerPoint. Well done, David! Jeff Kortenbosch is no stranger to screencasting and proved it by sharing his very first screencasts and two of his most recent screencasts. What a difference practice and experience makes. Jeff also shared his screencasting process as well as practical tips to help all of us record better videos. Great demos and info, Jeff! David Anderson shared a note card example that addresses common questions in the actual screencast. Great job, me. Ana Lucia Barguil shared a great example that combines course narration and screencasting. There are a lot of subtle elements in this demo, so please be sure you check it out. Awesome demo, Ana! David Lindenberg jumped in to share a fun tutorial for creating light box effects in Articulate Presenter and Microsoft PowerPoint. David always comes up with creative solutions so be sure to take a look at this classic tip. Montse Anderson shared an idea for using screencasts to answer questions from the community. Note: 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. Hope your week is NEXCHAstic, E-Learning Heroes!Using Sliders for Accessible Drag-and-Drop Interactions #569
Drag-and-drop is one of the most flexible features in Storyline. With freeform drag-and-drop, you can use images, text, shapes, and graphics to build almost any interaction you can dream up. There's one catch, though: drag-and-drops aren't fully keyboard accessible yet. That can leave some learners out when you want everyone to take part. If your interaction only needs to move in one direction (side to side or up and down), there's another object that works beautifully: the slider. Sliders for Drag-And-Drop Interactions? Most of us reach for sliders to compare values, explore data, or add quick microinteractions. But with a little customization, they can power drag-and-drop-style interactions that work with a keyboard and keep movement locked to the X or Y axis. Aman shows just how well this works in his typography example. View the example The first time I saw it, I thought, "Wait, how'd he do that?" The trick is surprisingly simple when you understand how sliders work. Aman swapped the standard slider thumb for a letter graphic. Now learners can move that letter left and right or up and down, just like they would in a drag interaction. And because sliders are tied to variables, you can make things happen when the values change. That makes sliders a great fit for typography concepts like kerning and leading, where learners need to move an object in only one direction. With a little customization, a slider can measure distance, set an object's position, or step through a sequence. It can even stand in for drag-and-drop, and that's exactly what this week's challenge is all about! 🏆 Challenge of the Week This week, your e-learning challenge is to share an example that shows how you can use sliders to build drag-and-drop-style interactions. Go beyond traditional number scales and use sliders to explore concepts like distance, position, sequence, intensity, or other relationships that benefit from hands-on movement. 🙌 Share Your Work You put in the effort. Now make sure your work gets seen: Personal blog: If you have a blog, write about your example from this week's challenge and share the link with your submission. Social media: Share your examples on LinkedIn and mention both David and Articulate using the #ElearningChallenge tag so we can help promote your work. Peer feedback: Try leaving helpful feedback on at least three projects this week. Community forums: Cross-post in the forums to give your work even more visibility. 🙌 Last Week’s Challenge: Before you slide into this week's challenge, check out the interactive video examples your fellow community members shared over the past week: Turning Video Into Learning Experiences #568: Challenge | Recap 👋 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. Learn more about the challenges in this Q&A post and why and how to participate in this helpful article.Using Web Objects for Performance Support in E-Learning #220
Using Web Objects in E-Learning #220: Challenge | Recap Storyline’s Web Objects are similar to lightbox slides in that they give course designers a solution for loading on-demand content and resources when they need it. What makes web objects unique is how they allow learners to access external content such as web pages and intranet sites directly inside the course. Ideas for using web objects include: Pulling in compliance documents from intranet sites Loading synchronous discussion forums and chat rooms for performance support Playing educational podcasts and explainer videos Challenge of the Week This week, your challenge is to share an example that demonstrates how web objects can be used in e-learning. If you’re not using Storyline or Studio, feel free to show something comparable in whatever tool you’re using. Resources Here are a few resources to help you get started. If you get stuck or need some help, please post in the forums and we’ll be glad to help you out. Storyline 360: Adding Web Objects Presenter 360: Adding Web Objects Last Week’s Challenge: Before you get started with this week’s challenge, take some time to check out the Valentine’s Day e-learning examples your fellow challengers shared over the past week: Valentine's Day Interactions #219: Challenge | Recap Wishing you a great week, E-Learning Heroes! 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.Feelings Pulse
This is an interactive experiment using poll-style questions within a video. It’s designed to describe emotions through colors and characters, using four simple questions. Each question is linked to a color — Red, Yellow, Blue, and Pink — and presents a few emotional choices for you to pick from. You’ll only be able to select one answer per question, and only once per session. Your response is saved anonymously and added to the overall results. At the end, you’ll see how others have answered as well. This isn’t based on any scientific research — it’s just a creative way to reflect on emotions and try out interactive video features. Thank you for being part of it. Feeling PulseWhat’s Your Celestial Learning Persona
In this challenge, I used a listicle format inside a scroll panel to explore how the 12 zodiac signs connect to learning styles. Each sign reveals a short, scrollable insight into how that type of learner might thrive — whether you're a curious Gemini, focused Capricorn, or imaginative Pisces. Just scroll through the list and discover which celestial style speaks to you :) What’s Your Celestial Learning PersonaFind the Dog
Taking a breather after some intense experimenting with the morph transition! Here’s a simplified version of the classic shell game (I think that’s what it’s called?). I remember watching it as a kid — older guys would play it on the street, trying to earn a bit of extra cash. They’d use matchboxes, shuffle them around with a hidden object underneath. If you guessed right, you’d win a few coins. If not... well, better luck next time! I called it "Find a dog" for the purpose of this challenge. Find the Dog
