Now You See It . . . Now You Don't

I have always been a Jack-of-all-trades kind of person.  I like learning new things, so when a need arose for a skill I did not have, I set my sites on learning and developing that skill. Some of those skills proved more useful than others. It is a long and warped list. Here are some of the highlights:

• I needed a website, so I bought software and figured it out. 
• My brother gave me a book about balloon animals for fun, so the next year I bought balloons by the case and made balloon animals at local school carnivals. 
• I needed someone who could play the guitar, so I bought a guitar and taught myself (granted, that one took a little longer). 
• I needed to teach an object lesson to children, so I learned magic tricks. 

Soon I had accumulated enough "illusions" in my bag of tricks that I was performing magic shows at birthday parties for families in our community.

My career path in e-Learning (and maybe yours) is not too different:

• You see a need...you buy a software
• Someone makes a request...you learn a skill
• You run into a problem you cannot solve...you take a class

A similar process may have lead you to add Articulate Storyline to your bag of tricks.  Well, Storyline has several little tricks up its sleeve to help you make some pretty "amazing" learning modules.

Here's some e-Learning "magic" used on a recent makeover that you can add to your bag of tricks:

The customer was interested in using one of the new cool tricks in Storyline...the Free-Form Drag and Drop Question.

Here is a sample of what they were trying to pull off.  The idea is simple . . . allow the learner to click and drag each item into its appropriate location: one of the bins or the shredder.  Like magic, in Storyline this can be accomplished in just a few steps without any secret magician's code.

Like with any magic trick, the customer wanted more. Unfortunately, in Storyline, when we toss these items into the bins or the shredder, they appear to land in front of instead of inside our target containers.  So, can we create the illusion that the items are actually in the bins and in the shredder instead of on top of them?  Of course we can!

There always seems to be a way in Storyline, and seldom is there only one way.  It doesn't require any magic...just a couple of the basic building blocks: Triggers and States.

Here are a couple of ways to accomplish this effect using state changes:

1. One way involves using one of the "built in" Drag and Drop States with no additional trigger needed.  You just have to activate and edit the state. 
2. The other way involves adding an additional trigger to change the state of each object to "hidden."  No need to create a new state here.  

Fortunately, both options are equally easy, with the same results.  Click the Play button below to watch a brief tutorial demonstrating both techniques.

That's Storyline and I am sticking to it!

Outside the Lines

Customizing your courses can really help them stand out in a sea of “Cookie Cutter” courses that we often see in the e-Learning world.  In our last Blog entry, we demonstrated how you can easily create a custom look for your navigation buttons in Storyline.

However, looks aren’t everything (for which I am grateful).

Let’s take that same module and show how we can allow the user to access any information, at any time and in any order, except for certain restricted slides, like a Quiz!

In our example below, you can see that certain buttons on the menu have been visited, but not necessary in any particular order. The challenge is to let the learner proceed in a non-linear fashion, but still restrict access to a specific part of the course, until we have verification that other segments of information have been viewed.

One solution is to simply use conditions to check the states of the menu buttons to see which ones had been visited.

You could begin with the Quiz button in a disabled state and have a “Slide Trigger” on this slide that changes the Quiz button to its “normal” state when the timeline starts, under the condition that all of the other buttons had been visited.

Simple enough, if all you needed to know was that the buttons were pressed. 

However, it may be more important for you to know whether or not the learner had actually visited certain slides of content, and not just clicked 
on a button.

In our makeover of this slide, we have edited the visited state to remind the learner that they have selected that menu option, but failed to completely view all of the content for that topic.

We also created a new custom state called “Completed” that informs the learner that they have finished viewing a particular topic.  Once they have viewed all the content for all topcis, then the Quiz button will become active.

It’s pretty easy with Storyline, here’s a quick video showing how we did it: 

That’s Storyline and I’m sticking to it!

The Easy Button

A fairly common challenge that e-Learning developers face, is creating something that doesn’t look like everything else.  Storyline has been a great gift to many of us in that arena with all of the customization that you can apply to the slides and the player.  For example, many developers have been choosing to disable the menu on the player and create their own menu by adding buttons to a slide in the course.

Let’s a take a look at how quickly and easily you can create your own custom buttons in Storyline.

However, in the world of buttons, customization options feel a little limited. There are just a few options to consider (like color and the cool button icons), so it is easy just to default to one of the preset buttons in the drop down list.  Yet, a simple custom button can really make a difference in the curb appeal of your module.

Here is an example of a recent Menu Slide from a customer using the built in button options. This is a popular design with the quiz button in a disabled state until all of the content has been visited.

 

Now here is that same slide using custom buttons.

 
Anything can become a button in Storyline.  Icons, logos, shapes, pictures can make unique and thematic navigational aids for your learning module.  Your buttons can also help communicate the visual messaging of your module.
 
Here is a quick Tutorial showing you how easy it was to build these custom buttons. 

Click Here to View the Tutorial.

NOTE: In this course, our customer needed an additional state called “completed”.  The “visited” state is built in and the button changes to that state automatically.  The button changes to the “completed” state once certain things happen in the module.  In our next blog entry, we will show you a clever way to use variables to trigger those state changes.

Looking for some ideas for different types of buttons or icons you might want to use in your next module?  Here is a site we use and share with everyone in our Storyline training sessions: icons.mysitemyway.com.

That's Storyline, and I'm sticking to it . . .

 

What's The Big Idea?

"Where's Wally?"

Does any image come to mind when you hear that question?  For those of us in the US or Canada, we resonate more with “Where’s Waldo?”   These books have had a pretty solid following since they were created in 1987.  Waldo even made an appearance in a Super Bowl commercial this year...and yes, he was hard to find.

Now, for those of you who do not know what I am talking about (maybe the books did not make it to your planet), let me give a brief explanation of the concept. Wally (Waldo), a very recognizable character, is dropped into a picture with a sea of other images, and the reader’s challenge is simply to find him.  I am amazed at how difficult it is to find this very distinctive looking character.

So...my point...this is an e-Learning blog, right?  At times, I find that it is easy for our clear, recognizable ideas to get lost in the midst of all the other content and noise in our courses. The learner has to wade through a sea of information to find out what the real purpose of the course is.

 

One of the ways we approach this dilemma when building courses at Yukon Learning is what we call the “BIG IDEA.”  In one of my favorite books on learning, “Understanding by Design,” Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins offer the “Backward Design” approach.

“We aim for specific results and design backward from them accordingly.”

(Wiggins and McTighe)

Backward Design looks a little like this:

Stage 1 – Identify desired results (aka, the BIG IDEA). What do the students really need to understand? 

Stage 2 – Determine acceptable evidence.  How will we know when the learner has achieved the desired results?  

Stage 3 – Plan experiences and instruction.  What skills, concepts, principles, etc. will the learner need in order to achieve the desired results? 

With the desired results identified and clarity around evidence of understanding, then and only then, do you work through the most appropriate and effective ways of communicating or teaching.  

So, What’s the Big Idea?

Getting clarity around the Big Idea is an important first stage in the e-Learning design and development process.  Chances are, you have more content than you can or should reasonably be teaching…and remember, you do not want your key message to get lost in a sea of other information.

 McTighe and Wiggins offer an exercise to help get to the Big Idea of your course topic.  At Yukon Learning, we use this exercise like a mind map to help get to our desired results.

The exercise helps us achieve the following:

1. Determines how this topic will manifest itself in the lives of the stakeholders
2. Gets beyond the “expert blind spots” we have regarding our topic
3. Adjusts our mindset from teaching to learning
4. Clarifies the "why do I need to know this information?" question for the learner
5. Helps change our focus from “what needs to be covered” in the course to “what can the learner discover” in the course

The Big Idea In Action 

To demonstrate this process, we will be using a course from one of our customers, Express Employment Professionals 
.  ExpressPros, for short, had a course they had previously built that was in need of some updates, so we worked with them to help gain some more clarity around their Big Idea.  CLICK HERE to watch a brief Screenr that describes the process.

A traditional approach to this topic may have only focused on the process needed for making the calls.  ExpressPros identified the real Big Idea as something different than just the process.  The process is actually pretty simple, so the course needed to address that paradox: if it is a clear, straightforward, and easy process, then why aren’t the calls being made?

The Big Idea of this course was really around the motivation for making the calls...uncovering why someone might not make the call and allowing the learner to discover the big impact a simple call can have on their success and the success of their customers and clients.

If you would like to try the process with one of your own topics, CLICK HERE to download a copy of the Big Idea Mind Map.  Let me know how it turns out for you, or if you have any questions about next steps.  We use a similar mind map later in our development process for how we might design the visual aspects of the project; however, clarity around the Big Idea must happen first and foremost.

Once you understand the Big Idea, it is easier to sort through your content identifying what is MUST know, what is SHOULD know, and what is just COULD know information.

Important Note:

One of the biggest challenges we experience with this process, is the temptation for developers to jump to Stage 3 – Planning the Instruction, before they have the clarity they need around the Big Idea.  The result?  Your learner is forced to play “Where’s Waldo?” and you end up with a lot of content clouding up your storyboard, making it difficult for your Big Idea to be heard and understood.

 

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to comment below, or email me – price@yukongroupinc.com.

Power of Animations

Welcome to the first edition of the Extreme Course Makeover blog. (applause) Wait . . . did you just roll your eyes?  Another blog?  Really?  After all, the latest blog roll on Articulate’s Word of Mouth blog listed 25 additional blogs you could be reading . . . so what is going to be different about this one?

First, let me introduce myself. If you do not already know, my name is Ron Price, with Yukon Learning. Here at Yukon, we build e-Learning courses. We do that a couple of different ways:

1. We work with our customers and their content to develop and customize e-Learning modules to meet their training needs.
2. We build Rapid Courses that customers can purchase off-the-shelf and then tailor to meet their specific needs.

We also teach. We are the training partner for Articulate, and offer training courses in Articulate Studio, Storyline, and Rapid e-Learning Development all over North America and Canada.

In these two roles – teaching and developing – we see hundreds of courses in need of a makeover. These makeovers can range from minor (re-adjusting the flow and visual voice of the course) to extreme (taking very word-laden screens of content and developing an engaging, interactive, instructionally-sound course).

Why do you want to read this blog?

If you are still reading, you may be curious about how this blog can benefit you. In each post, we will:

1. Take a look at a sample project. These will be real projects from real customers here at Yukon Learning.
2. Give a little bit of background information.
3. Highlight one or two of the key process, techniques, or philosophies  that we used in our "makeover."
4. Show some before and after screenshots or Screenrs.

Today, we are going to look at the before and after views of a course on an interviewing process developed by one of our customers. The content was in great condition, so our job was to assist in taking the content and making an engaging, visually appealing e-Learning module. 

The Power of Animation 

We used several different development and design techniques in this module, but the one we will focus on in this issue is the use of ANIMATION.

"Here's what grabs attention the most: Anything that moves . . ."

Susan Weinschenk, 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

 "Understand how to take advantage of relevant animation and transitions to clarify your information, not to confuse it"

Robin Williams, The Non-Designers Presentation Book

Animation is a simple, yet powerful way to draw the learner's attention toward key points of information and give your creation life.

Let's take a look at the sample project . . .

Watch this brief Screenr highlighting the before and after views of this course.

For this project, we used Articulate Studio, which uses Microsoft PowerPoint as its authoring platform. With PowerPoint, you have access to four main categories of Animation:

Entrance, Exit, Emphasis, and Motion Paths

Within each of the four categories, there are more options as well, regarding style, direction, speed, etc. In our sample project, we used animations from all four categories.

Shake it, but don't break it

Even though animations can enhance your learning module, they can also add to your development time and make editing more complicated if you use several different animations on a slide.

So, before you go crazy with animation, here are nine simple tips to consider:

 1. Don't do it unless it helps you make your point. Pointless animation is just pointless. So be sure to ask, "what's the point?"  If you cannot come up with a good reason, don't animate.

 2. Be consistent. You may need to create standards and use only a few animations that work for your content. Just because you have several options, do not feel you have to use them all. You can use all of the other animations on future modules (if you still have a job).

3. Animate objects instead of text. In Articulate Studio, we recommend animating an entire object (shape, picture, text box). If you want to animate two separate sentences at different times, put them in their own text box and animate those objects.

4. Name your objects. In PowerPoint 2007 and 2010, you can use the "Selection Pane" feature to rename objects. Clear and relevant names will greatly alleviate confusion when animating several objects on the same slide.

5. Don't re-animate the wheel. If you have previously created a slide with some cool animations that you would like to use again, you do not have to re-build it. Just add that slide to your new presentation. Then in PowerPoint, you can right-click any picture and select the "Change Picture" option. Select your new image, then the animations for the previous picture will stay for your new image.  Also, for those of you who have convinced your company to buy Microsoft Office 10, (congratulations!) you can use the "Animation Painter" feature to copy animations from one object to another.

6. Take Control. You are not limited to the preset defaults when it comes to PowerPoint Animations. "With Previous", "After Previous", "On-Click", and "Speed" can all be adjusted to meet your needs. For example, the "Very Fast" speed in PowerPoint Animations is ".5" seconds.  For something like a stop animation effect, we may adjust that to ".02".

7. Watch a movie. Next time you watch a movie, pay attention to the animations used at the beginning of the film (film? how old is this guy?). How do these animations draw or hold your attention? Maybe a similar technique could be used in your next course.

8. Pull the trigger. Try creating a hyperlink that "triggers" an animation. Example: Design two identical slides (hint - design one and then duplicate). On the first slide, just add a hyperlink to an object that will advance to the next slide. On the second slide, animate the object (be sure to set the animation to "Start With Previous").

9. Keep it smooth. Objects jumping on the screen when you change slides is a common mistake we see in animations, especially motion paths (Tip 7, for example).  Using PowerPoint's Grid Settings (Drawing guide, Gridlines, and Snap to functions) can help you get items and paths beginning and ending at the right places.  Also, duplicating slides as opposed to copying and pasting can help with this as well. Lastly, there are some great PPT add-ins available to assist with this.

Just do it!

If you are new to the world of animations, you might want to start experimenting with them to see if they can enhance how you design and develop your slides.  To get you started, download these examples, take them apart, try re-building them, or just use them as is. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD EXAMPLES OF ANIMATIONS.

Want to know more? Have questions? Do you have a course you would like to have "made-over?"

We welcome your comments, or you can contact me at price@yukongroupinc.com.