4 Software Simulation Examples That Show You What’s Possible in Storyline
Software simulations allow learners to work with new software in a low-pressure environment. Safely contained within your e-learning course, there’s no “messing up” your software simulations: learners can’t switch off an important process or accidentally post a private document.Make Working with SMEs a Breeze with These 3 Downloads
One of my favorite things about being an e-learning designer is creating courses on a wide variety of topics. I’ve learned so much over the years! When I look back on it, it’s almost like I had to become an expert in every subject in order to create the most effective learning experience. And while some of my knowledge came from my own research, more often than not it was gleaned from the content provided by my project’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Subject Matter Experts play a critical role in course design. They have the knowledge, experience, and insight to help you create the most impactful training. Despite their importance to your projects, working with SMEs can also be challenging. From different perspectives around how content should be presented to old-fashioned beliefs around how people learn, many e-learning pros find themselves in a battle of wills with their SMEs when all they really want is a productive partnership. This problem can be especially vexing when creating custom e-learning in a powerful app like Storyline 360. With so many creative possibilities, there are countless ways to present content. So how do you help your SMEs visualize different treatments and bridge gaps in understanding, all while building positive relationships with your SMEs? Here are three documents I’ve found essential for communicating clearly and aligning expectations from the start. Document 1: Project Kickoff Questions Before meeting with your project’s SMEs, it pays to do a little prep work. If you already have some source content pulled together, study it to get a basic understanding of the material. And if you don’t have content, research the topic or the company to make the most of your time with your SMEs. As you study, prepare a list of questions to help guide the conversation and show the SME how much you value their time. Need to kick-start your thinking? Download and customize this Project Kickoff Questionnaire for your needs. Download With all of your prep work done, you’re ready to set up a meeting with your SME to discuss the project. Make sure to bring your list of questions, and then listen actively and take notes. This is your time to build trust with your SMEs and identify knowledge and performance gaps to determine the right solution. Document 2: Project Plan After you determine the right solution, it’s time to put the details in writing so you’re all on the same page. A project plan can be a great way to align expectations. In the project plan, you can include the project background, course information, deliverables, timelines, and any other important details. Once you’re done preparing the project plan, have the SME review it and confirm its accuracy before moving forward with design. Need help creating a project plan? I’ve got you covered! Download this free project plan template. Download Document 3: Storyboard Now that you and the SME are on the same page, it’s time to start designing the project. If you’re using a slide-based authoring app like Storyline 360, the best way to make sure you have a solid foundation for development is to create a storyboard. A storyboard is the blueprint for a course that outlines the content screen by screen. Storyboards help your SMEs visualize how the content will flow and allows them to make edits before you start development in your authoring app. Note: If you’re using a web-based authoring app like Rise 360, you can skip the storyboarding phase and go straight to development since it’s easy to use and quick to make changes. Need help getting started? Then download and customize this storyboard template with your content. Download What Next? After the storyboard is finalized, you can feel confident knowing you have a solid foundation to start building your course. Taking the time to develop project kickoff questions, create a clear project plan, and storyboard the content before you start developing it in your authoring app will set you, the SME, and the learners up for success. For more ideas on working with SMEs, check out this series on Everything You Need to Know About Working with SMEs. 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.Labs: Explore, Experiment, and Help Shape What’s Next
The best features we build don’t come from us alone. They come from you! From the courses you build to the creative ways you push our tools, your ideas shape what we create next. And while we’ve always listened through surveys, interviews, and community conversations, we wanted a way to work with you even more closely. So we started looking for a way to build more collaboratively, bringing you into the process while ideas are still evolving, not just before or after they ship. That’s how Labs came to be. With Labs, you can opt in to try early features and explore new ideas in the context of your real work. Instead of relying on retrospective feedback, Labs gives us a chance to learn alongside you in real time. Most experiments include built-in ways to share feedback, so what you’re experiencing can immediately inform what we improve next. It also helps us connect with creators who want to be more involved in the process. If you’re exploring an experiment, there’s a good chance we’ll reach out to hear more about your experience and keep the conversation going. Some experiments will be a success. Others will help us pivot in a new direction. Either way, they help us move faster and build better tools for you. Not every feature will go through Labs, but when something is available, you’ll find all the details in the Labs community group. That includes what the feature does, any current limitations, and the type of feedback we’re looking for. Following the group is the best way to stay up to date on new experiments. Labs isn’t a replacement for the ways we’ve always worked with you. It’s an extension of that relationship and a new way to shape the future of the authoring experience together. Explore Labs, try out what’s new, and let us know what you think. Go to Labs *All features on Articulate Labs and are subject to change. These features are experimental and may be modified or removed at any time. Beta Services Terms apply.7 Pro Tips for Working with Motion Path Animations in Storyline 360
Animations can be a powerful way to explain a concept, tell a story, or make your content memorable. Storyline 360 has a variety of animation options—including entrance, exit, and motion paths. With motion path animations, you can control how your objects move and bring your ideas to life. Here are some time-saving tips to help propel you forward when working with motion path animations. 1. Rename Motion Paths When you add a motion path animation to an object in Storyline 360, a name is automatically assigned. If you plan on adding multiple motion paths, it’s a good idea to rename each one. This will make it easier to identify which motion path you’re working on when editing triggers. 2. Copy Animations If you plan on using the same motion path animation on several objects, save time by copying the animation from one object to another using the Animation Painter. By double-clicking the Animation Painter, you can apply the same animation to multiple objects one after the other without having to click the Animation Painter over and over again. To turn it off, click it one last time or press the ESC key on your keyboard. Did you know? When you copy and paste an object, any animations you’ve added to the object are also copied over. So if you’re using the same object multiple times, add any animations you want to include before you copy it to save time. 3. Sync Using Cue Points As you build content, you might change your mind about when you want your motion path animation to start. Syncing your motion path to a cue point gives you the flexibility to change the motion path timing without having to edit the trigger each time. All you have to do is drag the cue point along the timeline until the timing feels right, and the motion path will start at the new time. 4. Select the Object Path to Edit To edit a motion path, you can select the start or end point individually using your mouse and drag the point to the desired location. If you have multiple start or end points overlapping each other, you can easily select and edit them without having to hide objects from your timeline. Simply select the line of the object path you want to edit. It will turn bright blue while the other objects and their paths will fade. Then, move the start or end point as needed. Did you know? Another way to fine-tune a motion path is to select the start or end point of one or all of the objects and edit the X and Y coordinates. This is great for times when you need to be super-precise. 5. Change the Easing Option By default, Storyline 360 automatically assigns an ease-in and ease-out effect to your motion paths. This controls the acceleration and deceleration of an animation. If your animation needs to move at the same pace across the screen, then you’ll want to edit the easing direction to none. 6. Orient Shape to Path There might be times when you need to include an object that faces a certain direction as it follows a path—for example, a car making a right turn. By selecting Orient Shape to Path, the object will always face the direction it’s moving, even when it travels on a nonlinear path. 7. Use a Relative Start Point Perhaps you want to create an interaction where the object can move multiple times depending on the learner’s choice. For example, let’s say you created a racetrack and want the learner’s car to move forward whenever they answer a question correctly. Instead of duplicating the object and creating motion paths for each possible outcome, you can select Relative Start Point to move the object along the motion path starting from its current position. For more ideas on how to use this feature, check out this tutorial. Did you know? You can add more than one motion path to the same object and have each begin at the new location of the object based on previous movements. For more ideas on how to use this feature, check out this free Storyline 360 download by Samuel Apata. Motion path animations give you the flexibility to quickly create content that’ll move your learners. What tips do you have for working with motion paths? Share your ideas in the comments below. Want to try something you learned here, 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.4 Ways to Use the New Quiz Tracking Features in Storyline 360
Quizzing is an integral part of most e-learning courses. It’s how you gauge learner understanding and ensure everyone has taken their assigned training. But quizzing isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. When it comes to e-learning projects, each one has its own unique set of requirements. And it’s your job—as the e-learning designer—to come up with creative solutions that meet your tracking needs and provide your learners with an optimal learning experience. We’ve been working on some great new quiz tracking features that make it even easier for you to design custom quiz experiences for your learners. Let’s look at some of the ways you can put these robust features to good use. 1. Allow Learners to Test Out of Your Course If you’re creating an e-learning course for learners with differing levels of prior knowledge on the topic at hand, why not give advanced learners the opportunity to test out of your course from the get-go? That way, if they already know the content backward and forward, they won’t waste any of their valuable time clicking through your course. And if it turns out they don’t know as much as they thought they did, they can take your course to learn more. Here’s an example of what that experience might look like: View interactive version | Download the template With the new Expanded Quiz Tracking feature in Storyline 360, you can create a course with both a pre-check and a final assessment. If the learner passes the pre-check, the score they received will be sent to the LMS when they exit the course. If they fail, they can complete the course, take the final assessment, and that score will be reported instead. And it’s super easy to set up! Simply open the LMS tracking options and ensure you’ve selected Pre-Check for the first quiz and Final Assessment for the second one, as shown below: 2. Create One Course with Multiple Learning Paths Have you ever needed to create a course on a topic for different populations? Let’s say you’re building a course on conflict management for individual contributors and people managers. You could create two separate courses, but since a lot of the information overlaps, that might create extra work for you down the line if any of the content needs updating. Not to mention that with two courses, you’d have to upload and track them separately in your LMS. What a headache! Another way to handle this situation would be to create one course with multiple learning paths, like in the example below: View interactive version | Download the template But if you have a quiz for each role, how do you track only the quiz that the learner viewed? With the new Expanded Quiz Tracking feature, it’s easy. All you need to do is ensure that both quizzes are marked as Final Assessments in the LMS tracking window, as shown below: 3. Give Learners More Than One Way to Succeed Another way to tackle training a group of learners with varying degrees of knowledge on a topic is by giving them a few different ways to complete your course. For example, let’s say the majority of your learners have no prior knowledge of your content, so you’d like to ensure they’ve viewed a certain number of slides in order to get credit for the course. But then let’s say that another group of learners has a great deal of prior knowledge on the topic. Instead of forcing all the learners—even those who are already well-versed in the subject matter—to take your course from start to finish, why not give everyone the best of both worlds? allow advanced learners to complete the course by passing the pre-check AND allow novice learners to complete the course by viewing a certain number of slides With the new Track Multiple Completion Criteria feature, you can do just that! You can select one, two, or all three of the possible completion methods in the LMS tracking window: Then, whichever one the learner completes first is submitted to your LMS. It’s as easy as that! 4. Create a Quiz That Adapts Based on the Learner’s Responses Want to really dig in and determine whether your learners have grasped the content of your course? Try building a quiz that dynamically adapts the questions learners see based on their responses. For example, let’s say a learner answers a question about Topic 1 incorrectly. Before presenting them with a question on Topic 2, you might want to ask a follow-up question about Topic 1. By giving them another chance to test their knowledge of Topic 1, you can determine whether they need a refresher. Here’s an example of what that might look like when you’re authoring: View interactive version | Download the template In the example above, you can see there are a total of seven possible questions, but each learner only sees three. Now, you might be wondering, but how do I ensure that learners aren’t penalized for the questions they skip over? Thanks to the new Score Only Viewed Questions feature in Storyline 360, it’s simple. Once you’ve set up your branching, just navigate to the results slide, open the quiz settings, and check the box next to Only Score Viewed Questions: Storyline 360 takes care of the rest! More Resources We hope you’re as excited about these new features as we are! We can’t wait to hear about all the great ways you put them to use. For more detailed information on these features, check out this tutorial. And for more tips on creating effective quizzes with Storyline 360, be sure to dig into all the great resources in this article: Your One-Stop Shop for Storyline 360 Quiz-Building Tips. Want to give these hot new features a spin, but don’t have Storyline 360? Start a free 30-day trial of Articulate 360, 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.
