Make Over Your Rise 360 Course in 4 Easy Steps With Themes
Rise 360 has always been a fantastic tool for creating courses fast. And with the templates and other flexible options, even people without graphic design experience can feel confident that their Rise 360 projects will always look polished and professional. That’s why we’re so excited about Rise 360 themes. Themes give you even more ways to put your unique spin on the look and feel of your Rise 360 courses. And just like everything else about Rise 360, the themes feature makes creating beautifully designed courses easy—no graphic design skills needed. So let’s take a closer look at four easy steps you can follow to refresh your overall course design with a new theme, pique your learners’ interest with cover pages and lesson headers, reinforce your branding, and customize the course navigation experience. Step 1: Update the Overall Course Design With a New Theme The easiest way to give your course’s visual design a little facelift is to choose from the three prebuilt themes included in Rise 360. These themes are great for setting the overall look and feel of your project in one fell swoop. Let’s look at how to choose a theme and the available theme options, below. Choosing a Theme Start by opening any existing Rise 360 course on your Rise 360 dashboard. Select Theme in the upper right corner, and then click Change Theme. Rise 360 includes three professionally designed, ultra-stylish themes—Rise, the classic theme you’ve come to know (but with a few more customization options), plus two brand-new ones: Apex and Horizon. Following is a quick overview of each theme. Rise Our original theme, Rise, always looks modern and clean—a tried-and-true design choice that never goes out of style. Apex For a bold, contemporary, and striking design with angular finishes, choose Apex. Horizon When you want to give your course an elegant, sharp, and stylish makeover—complete with understated flourishes—Horizon is a great choice. They’re all so beautiful, right? Not sure which theme works best for your content? We’ve got you covered! Check out 3 Ways to Use Themes to Tailor Your Rise 360 Projects for some pro pointers. Once you’ve decided on a theme for your project, click to select it and you’ll see it applied to your project in the adjacent preview pane. Being able to preview your theme choice is handy because if you’re not in love with it, you can simply click another one. And if it’s love at first sight, click Save to apply it to your project. While you can use each theme as is, you also have loads of options for customizing key theme elements such as the cover page, lesson headers, and other features of the user interface, like colors, fonts, and navigation. We’ll explore some of these customization options in the next few steps. Step 2: Grab Learners’ Attention With a Custom Cover Page and Lesson Headers A cover page is your first opportunity to grab a learner’s attention, so why not customize it to fit the course topic or your company branding and really make it count? Select Cover Page from the menu and pick a stylish layout. If you’re opting to add a course image to your cover page, you can upload your own image or browse the wide selection images available in Content Library 360, which is built right into Rise 360. Pro Tip: You can also crop images directly in Rise 360. That means no hassling with a separate image editing app to tailor your course images to your project. To make your theme branded, upload your logo too. Customizing the Lesson Header option is another nice way to draw learners in and direct their attention to your content. You can choose from a variety of header designs or customize them with your own color or image. You can even adjust lesson headers to make them taller or shorter to create more or less white space, as you can see in the GIF above. Step 3: Reinforce Your Brand Identity With Custom Colors and Fonts The design choices we’ve walked through so far are quick but powerful ways to transform your course, but they’re really just the tip of the creative iceberg! You can also brand your course with custom colors and fonts to make sure it more fully aligns with your brand guidelines. Colors You can choose the Colors option to customize course accents like the menu and progress bar. Rise 360 makes picking eye-catching colors easy with curated options you can apply with a single click. But what if you need to bring in your official brand shades? No problem. Choose the Custom feature and select any color you’d like. Fonts Another easy way to brand your Rise 360 projects is to customize the fonts. Choose the Fonts option to find the perfect typeface for your project. Not sure where to start? Try the Recommended pairings—a fast way to make sure your headings and body fonts go together perfectly. For even more flexibility, click More to browse a selection of pre-installed options. And if you want to use your official brand fonts, just click Manage Custom Fonts to upload the ones you need and use them throughout your course. Step 4: Complete the Transformation With Custom Navigation and Button Styles You’ve got the cover page, lesson headers, colors and fonts fine-tuned. The final step in making over your Rise 360 course is to customize course navigation and button styles. Navigation In Rise 360, you’ve always had the option to show, hide, or disable the sidebar navigation. And now we’ve added more ways to customize course navigation so you can create the perfect experience for your learners. To start exploring your options, choose Navigation. Both Compact and Overlay navigation are great for making your content the star of the show. Choose Compact navigation to tuck your lesson menu away in a corner, where it can be quickly expanded with a click when learners need it. Another great option is Overlay navigation. When learners need to view the menu, they simply click the ☰ (hamburger) icon and the menu overlays the lesson, filling the screen. Love keeping things familiar? The always reliable Sidebar menu is a great choice with more options to choose from. Don’t want to include a navigation menu at all? No problem. You can remove it entirely—just as you’ve always been able to do in Rise 360. Buttons Want to continue customizing your course? Don’t forget about button options! Pick the button color that’s right for your course or branding. You can even refine your Previous and Next buttons by making them full width or floating—or you can remove them entirely. It’s totally up to you! Want to see how themes and custom settings can be combined for different effects? Check out the following example course. We present the same content three different ways and with minimal customizations so you can see for yourself. Explore Horizon Explore Apex Explore Rise Customizations: compact navigation, large header height Customizations: overlay navigation, small header height, custom color Customizations: sidebar navigation, medium header height, custom color Wrap-Up Not only does the themes feature give you a host of new ways to express yourself, wow your learners, and brand your Rise 360 content, it’s also streamlined the course creation process by consolidating theme settings all in one place—right at the top of the authoring environment in Rise 360. With so many options to customize your project's look and feel, you can rest assured knowing that whichever professionally designed theme you choose, your course will look fantastic on any device. And all of these thoughtful features and enhancements mean Rise 360 just keeps making it easier to create stunningly unique and stylish courses your learners will love. For more tips and inspiration on how you can start using themes in your e-learning, check out these helpful resources: Quickly Create Uniquely Stunning Courses with Rise 360 Themes 3 Ways to Use Rise 360 Themes to Tailor Your Projects How to Brand Your Rise 360 Course Want to try the new Rise 360 themes but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial! 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.Storyline: Course Certificate Template
Do you want to reward learners with a certificate when they successfully complete a course? Then download this certificate of completion template to use in your own projects. This template uses the print slide trigger in Storyline 360, which allows learners to print the contents of a specific slide. Explore this project.Using Variables to Personalize E-Learning Courses #441
Personalizing E-Learning #441: Challenge | Recap Why Should I Learn to Use Variables? Great question. Articulate Storyline's core authoring features (states, layers, and triggers) are the building blocks that make it easy for virtually anyone to create interactive e-learning. But when you want to create more personalized learning experiences, you’ll need to know how to use variables. Using Storyline’s variables, you can present dynamic content based on your learner’s activity and other defined conditions. Variables can store learner input and use the information to present personalized content based on specific criteria. 3 Ways to Personalize E-Learning To get an idea of common ways designers personalize the e-learning experience, check out the following challenges. You're welcome to cross-post your entries this week if your demo fits in a previous challenge. Use Learner's Name in E-Learning Course #222: Challenge | Recap Choose Your Own E-Learning Characters #195: Challenge | Recap Adaptive Path Branching in E-Learning #196: Challenge | Recap 🏆 Challenge of the Week This week, your challenge is to share an example that shows how learners can personalize their learning experience. If you’re new to e-learning or working with variables, don’t sweat this one. We’re here to help. If you get stuck or want us to look at your project, post a question in the forums, and we’ll be happy to take a look. 🧰 Resources Webinar: 5 Ways to Personalize E-Learning Courses Storyline 360: Working with Variables Storyline 360: Adding Variable References ✨ Share Your E-Learning Work Comments: Use the comments section below to link your published example and blog post. Forums: Start a new thread and share a link to your published example. Personal blog: If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We'll link to your posts so your great work gets even more exposure. Social media: If you share your demos on Twitter or LinkedIn, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can follow your e-learning coolness. 🙌 Last Week’s Challenge: Before you get started personalizing this week’s challenge, check out the interactive fashion advice your fellow challengers shared over the past week: Interactive Fashion Tips and How Tos RECAP 440: 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 challengesanytime 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. 📆 Next Week’s Challenge & Webinar Next week's challenge #441 (Nov 24, 2023): Using background audio to establish a scene or location, set the mood, and add context to your course. Upcoming webinar (Nov 21, 2023): Introduction to Variables in Storyline 360 Got an idea for a challenge? Are you interested in doing a webinar showcasing how you made one or more challenge demos? Or do you have some comments for your humble challenge host? Use this anonymous form to share your feedback: https://bit.ly/ElearningChallengeForm.Storyline: Compare Learner Response with Expert Recommendation Using Variables
One way course designers can move past the simple multiple-choice type question is with text entry fields that let learners type in their responses and compare their answers to an expert’s recommendation. View the project in action. Share Your Own Examples in E-Learning Challenge #292 We have a weekly challenge on using text variables to let learners compare and contrast their answers with those from an expert. Please share your own examples in E-Learning Challenge #292.19 Examples Show How to Personalize E-Learning #441
Personalizing E-Learning RECAP #441: Challenge | Recap Discover 19 ways course creators use variables to create dynamic and personalized learning experiences. Jonathan Hill Example | Download | Jonathan Hill | Website | @DevByPowerPoint Jodi M. Sansone Example | Download | Jodi M. Sansone | Website | @jodimsansone Chris Hodgson Example & Learn more | Chris Hodgson | Website | @skriss Nicole Boswell Example | Nicole Boswell | Website Samuel Apata Example | Samuel Apata | Website | @afrostem eLearn Dev Example & Learn more | eLearn Dev Ruby Sorto Example | Ruby Sorto Laura Hansen Example | Laura Hansen Daria Tucha Example | Daria Tucha Mark Hopper Example | Mark Hopper Ashi (Neha) Tandon Example | Ashi (Neha) Tandon | Website | @ashi_tandon Wrenn Corcoran Example | Wrenn Corcoran Talent Gate eLearning Example | Talent Gate eLearning Thierry EMMANUEL Example | Thierry EMMANUEL Nhlamolo Moja Example | Nhlamolo Moja Heather Nicholson Example | Heather Nicholson | Website Matt Wright Example | Matt Wright Maren West Example | Maren West Kate Golomshtok Example | Kate Golomshtok | Website New to 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. If you have a blog, please write about your challenge example. I'll add links to your blog post so your examples get even more exposure. And for those who share your demos on Twitter or LinkedIn, please include #ELHChallenge so your network (and Articulate!) can track your e-learning coolness. Share Your Personalizing E-Learning Examples! The personalization challenge is still open! If you have one or more ideas you'd like to share, please jump over to the original challenge and post your links in the comments section. I'll update this recap page to include your examples.Using Learning Journals to Keep Learners Focused & Engaged #425
Using Learning Journals in E-Learning #425: Challenge | Recap Looking for a way to practice working with variables and keep your learners focused and engaged? Try adding a learning journal option to your next project. Learning journals can be a great tool to help learners record their thoughts, insights, and questions about the course. They’re also a fantastic way to learn to work with text variables and references in Storyline 360. Check out the following examples to get an idea of how learning journals can work in e-learning. Watch. Explore. Reflect. I like this example because it features YouTube videos that give learners a big-picture overview of the topic, followed by a drag-and-explore activity, all before asking the student to jot down their ideas about life from outer space. Example | Ron Katz | Website Just-In-Time Journals This example features a learning journal icon that’s available on every slide in the course. Giving learners a persistent means to track their thoughts and enhance their learning experience. Example | Thierry EMMANUEL Challenge of the Week This week, your challenge is to share an interactive example that shows how learning journals and note-taking can be used to encourage learners to reflect on the material. If you’re new to variables or need assistance with your example, let us know in either the comments section or in the Build Better Courses forums so we can help. Resources Here are some resources for Storyline users. If you’re using another authoring tool or even a tool that doesn’t support variables (like PowerPoint) you can still share your ideas. User Guide: Storyline 360: Working with Variables. Use variables to remember information—such as a learner's name or a numeric value Storyline 360: Adding Variable References. Variable references let you display that information anywhere in your course. Storyline 360: Print Slide Trigger. Let learners print individual slides, such as certificates, with a single trigger—no coding required. More resources: Learning Journal Examples in E-Learning #344: Challenge | Recap Use Learner's Name in E-Learning Course #222: Challenge | Recap Storyline: Printable Goal-Setting Journal Template Share Your E-Learning Work Comments: Use the comments section below to link your published example and blog post. Forums: Start a new thread and share a link to your published example. Personal blog: If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We'll link to your posts so your great work gets even more exposure. Social media: If you share your demos on Twitter or LinkedIn, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can follow your e-learning coolness. Last Week’s Challenge: Before you reflect on this weeks challenge, check out the practical ways course designers transform static content into interactive e-learning: Converting Static Slides Into Interactive E-Learning #424: 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. Got an idea for a challenge? Are you interested in doing a webinar showcasing how you made one or more challenge demos? Or do you have some comments for your humble challenge host? Use this anonymous form to share your feedback: https://bit.ly/ElearningChallengeForm.Storyline: Personalized Decision Matrix
Do you have a lot on your to-do list and don’t know where to start? This interactive Eisenhower Decision Matrix will help you manage your professional and personal tasks more efficiently. When you’re done, you can print your personalized task matrix and use it to boost your productivity. Explore this project. To learn more about how I designed this template, check out this article. And if you’d like to see two other example courses that teach these same concepts, head on over to this article.Quickly Create Stunning Courses With Rise 360 Themes
If you need to quickly create beautiful, responsive e-learning, Rise 360 is the authoring app for you. With stunning prebuilt themes and countless options for personalization, it’s never been easier to create unique, cohesive learning experiences. In this article, we’ll walk you through how to make your online courses look gorgeous and professional. 1. Choose a Theme In Rise 360, you’ll find three beautiful, prebuilt themes created by award-winning designers that you can apply to your courses in just a few clicks. Let’s take a look at each option. Rise Live Preview of Rise Our original theme—Rise—is modern and clean. It’s extremely versatile and works for all subject matters. Apex Live Preview of Apex If you’re looking for a bold, contemporary theme, Apex is a great option. Your learners will love its striking, angular finishes. Horizon Live Preview of Horizon For something a little more elegant, look no further than the Horizon theme. Its sharp and stylish feel with understated flourishes can set the right tone. To apply one of these themes to your next project, simply open a Rise 360 course, go to the Theme menu, and select the style you want. 2. Select Customization Options Once you’ve chosen a theme, you can further customize the look and feel of your Rise 360 courses to ensure they’re on brand. Let’s take a closer look at some of the options available. Cover Page Layouts Each theme includes a variety of stunning cover page layouts to make a strong first impression on your learners. You can use the same one for every course, or switch it up to keep things fresh for your learners. Here’s a peek at the different cover layouts you’ll find for each theme. Rise Apex Horizon As you can see, there are tons of possibilities! So you’re sure to find one that works well for your project. Navigation Types Another thing you can customize is the course navigation type. Let’s take a peek at each option. Sidebar The sidebar navigation option is tried and true. It allows learners to access the course menu and content simultaneously, while also giving them the option to hide it when they want to focus on learning. This versatility makes it a great option for any course. Compact Like the sidebar, compact navigation lets your learners decide to either view both the menu and content or minimize the menu for fewer distractions. The main difference here is that even when learners hide the menu, they can still see where they’re at in the flow of the course—allowing them to continue monitoring their progress. Overlay If you want to give your learners a more immersive experience, where they’re only focusing on one thing at a time, overlay navigation is a good option. When they open the menu, they’ll be able to give your course outline their full attention. And when they close it, the content will be the sole focal point. Button Styles You can also customize the look and feel of the buttons that guide learners from one lesson to the next. In addition to a few different color options, you can choose whether you want them to be full width like in this screenshot … … or floating, like in this one … Or you can remove them entirely. It’s up to you! Lesson Headers There are also a number of options for personalizing the lesson headers. For starters, you can choose whether or not you want one. If you decide you do, you can customize the background color or image. Then you can select the height option you prefer: low, medium, or high. And finally, you can opt to show or hide the lesson number and author avatar. Colors When it comes to colors, you can choose one of our default theme colors or select your own by using the color browser or inputting a Hex code. Once you’ve selected your theme color, it’ll be applied throughout your course automatically. Font Pairings Rise 360 gives you a variety of professionally selected font pairings, so your course text looks polished. Of course, you also have the option to create your own by mixing and matching default fonts or uploading your own for a truly personalized look. And that’s just the beginning! With all these customization options—and more—the possibilities are truly endless. Wrap-Up With Rise 360, it's easy to create cohesive, professional-looking learning experiences—even with no prior training or design experience. Ready to try it out for yourself? Simply head to your Rise 360 dashboard, create a new course—or open an existing one—and click on the Theme tab to check out the customization options. It’s that easy! Don’t have Rise 360? Start your free 30-day trial of Articulate 360 now. For tips and inspiration on how to use themes to create beautiful, branded e-learning, check out these helpful resources: Make Over Your Rise 360 Courses in 4 Easy Steps with Themes 3 Ways to Use Rise 360 Themes to Tailor Your Projects How to Brand Your Rise 360 Course And if you found this article helpful, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice directly in your inbox. If you have questions, please share them in the comments.20+ Ways to Use Learning Journals in E-Learning #425
Digital Learning Journal Examples RECAP #425: Challenge | Recap This week's challenge asked course designers to show how digital journals can be used in e-learning. Examples shared include journals for note-taking, reflection, time management, and more. Ron Katz Example | Download | Ron Katz | Website Elizabeth Pawlicki Example | Elizabeth Pawlicki Matt Wright Example | Matt Wright Jennifer Clarke Example | Jennifer Clarke Alex Bylo Example | Alex Bylo Kymberly Mayfield Example | Kymberly Mayfield TJ Barber Example | TJ Barber Jonathan Hill Example | Jonathan Hill | Website | @DevByPowerPoint Anna Piasecka Example | Anna Piasecka Laura Hansen Example | Laura Hansen Ashi (Neha) Tandon Example | Ashi (Neha) Tandon | Website | @ashi_tandon Nhlamolo Moja Example | Nhlamolo Moja Kali Maginity Example | Kali Maginity Amy Wightman Example | Amy Wightman Wrenn Corcoran Example | Wrenn Corcoran Courtney Roberts Example | Courtney Roberts Phezulu Dhlodhlo Example | Phezulu Dhlodhlo Dena Poppe Example | Dena Poppe Kali Maginity Example | Kali Maginity Carrie Susong Gurkin Example | Carrie Susong Gurkin | Website Robin Janzen Example | Robin Janzen Example | Robin Janzen New to 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. If you have a blog, please write about your challenge example. I'll add links to your blog post so your examples get even more exposure. And for those who share your demos on Twitter or LinkedIn, please include #ELHChallenge so your network (and Articulate!) can track your e-learning coolness. Share Your Learning Journal Examples! The learning journal challenge is still open! If you have one or more ideas you'd like to share, please jump over to the original challenge and post your links in the comments section. I'll update this recap page to include your examples.
