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.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.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.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.Gate Screens in Online Courses #3
Gate Screens in E-Learning #3: Challenge | Recap Challenge of the Week Show and share your best out-of-the-box ideas for using gate screens: Objective: Design a two-slide interaction that includes a content screen and a gate screen. The content screen can be a placeholder screen. The key is to show how your gate screen will load and close in relation to the course. Tools: You can use Articulate Storyline or PowerPoint to create your example. Resources: Check out Tom’s post on gate screens and the free Storyline and PowerPoint templates he put together in our downloads section. Sharing This is a really great way to practice your visual communication skills while building up 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. If you have a question or want to share your source files, you should use the forums. Forums: Create your own thread in our forums and share a link to your published source file. You can also attach your project files if you’d like some help or feedback. Personal blog: Post your published example on your own blog and include a link in the comments below. Looking for inspiration? We were totally impressed with the creative ideas you shared in last week’s tabs interaction challenge. Thanks for making it a big success! To warm up for this week’s challenge, check out the creative examples your fellow community members shared last week: Heather Steckley kicked off the challenge with a roadmap theme and followed up with an out-of-the-box pseudo-scrolling tabs demo. Tricia Ransom shared creative example featuring interactive cabinet drawers with open and closed states. Kevin Thorn shared an elegant tabs example with animated tabs. Be sure to grab the free template he shared with his example. Przemysław Hubisz shared two grid-based tabs examples: version 1 and version 2. Montse Anderson first shared an leadership scenario followed by an interactive quotes demo. Andrzej Rudnik shared a wonderful photo slideshow tabs interaction. Jenise Cook shared a desktop-themed tabs interaction. To help you get started creating your own tabs interaction, Jenise shared her Storyline file and recorded a screencast. Thanks, Jenise! Have a gatetastic week, E-Learning Heroes! Post written by David AndersonConverting Static Content to Interactive Knowledge Checks #7
Interactive Knowledge Checks #7: Challenge | Recap “How do I make my e-learning more interactive?” Now that your course designs cleared their medical check-ups, it’s time to get them active—as in interactive. One of the easiest ways to move your static content to something more interactive is to reframe your existing content into the form of a question. This is a great way to create informal, interactive knowledge checks without extending your project’s timeline. Articulate Storyline’s Convert to Freeform option makes this process really easy. We posted an article Thursday that goes into more detail on using this technique. You may want to reference it for this week’s challenge: Transform Static Content Into Interactive Knowledge Checks. Challenge of the Week Show and share your interactive makeovers using an existing slide from one of your projects: Objective: Convert an existing content slide and convert it to an interaction using one of the Storyline’s six free-form questions. Tools: You can use Storyline, Articulate Studio, Word, or PowerPoint to create your before and after examples. You don’t need Storyline to participate in this week’s challenge. What we care about most is seeing your before and after slides. Storyboard the before-after examples in PowerPoint or Word to communicate how you’d rework the static content. NOTE: This is not a visual design activity! You shouldn’t re-design your slide; you should only re-work the existing content into an interaction. Both slides should look the same except for the presentation of the content. Resources How to Transform Static Content into Interactive Knowledge Checks (Overview of how this technique works) Converting an Existing Slide to a Free-form Interaction (Storyline tutorial) Converting a static list into a drag-and-drop sorting activity (Screencast) Converting a text-heavy slide into fill-in-the-blank activity (Screencast) Additional resources on interactivity: 3 Things to Consider When Building Interactive E-Learning How to Create Interactive E-Learning A Simple Approach to Interactive E-Learning Sharing your examples: Comments: Use the comments section below to share a link to your published project. The comments section allows links but not attachments. If you have a question or want to share your source files, you should use the forums. Forums: Create your own thread in our forums and share a link to your published source file. You can also attach your project files if you’d like some help or feedback. Personal blog: Post your published example on your own blog and add a link in the comments below. Last week’s challenge I have to tell you how much I enjoy seeing what you come up with every week. The ideas and creativity are amazing, and I appreciate you taking time to share your work with the Articulate community. Thank you. Older challenges: If you have a demo or example for an older challenge, you can still post it in the comments. The previous challenge threads will always be open. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your e-learning skills, build your e-learning portfolio, and connect with fellow community members. To get help get you moving for this week’s interactive makeovers, check out the healthy serving of creativity your fellow community members shared in last week’s challenge: Sarah Redmond introduced herself to E-Learning Heroes by sharing her minimalist design that features creative navigation, lightboxes, and medical disclaimers. Mariann Toth really captured the medical theme in her template makeover. From the characters, to the colors and medical imagery, she totally captured the medical feel in this template. Curtis Pembrook also introduced himself to E-Learning Heroes with his medical makeover template. Really like the creative navigation, Ask the Expert, and Tips sub-navigation technique. This would make a great course template. Have an interACTIVE week, E-Learning Heroes! Post written by David Anderson
