Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

Currently

Where Have I Been? Spring 2020

Hey Folks! It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to muster the emotional energy to blog, and I’m sorry. I promise this is the start of getting back in the saddle.

2020 has been an emotional rollercoaster. I presented at my first ATDTK in San Jose this past February, and had a blast, and then returned to a very chaotic world. A family member was hospitalized, we thought they were rebounding, and then it took a turn for the worse…and then COVID-19 hit and in the middle of preparing for a funeral and postponing a funeral, we were faced with a stay home order. We’ve been home, much like everyone else, and for the past two months and I have been waffling between feeling completely fine and entirely falling apart. I know I’m not the only one who’s experiencing this.

While things in these parts have not returned to normal (and who knows when they will), there are a few good things that I have been truly appreciating:

1. The Alchemy Lab

When my pal Clint reached out to gauge interest in participating in or speaking at a free online Learning & Development (L&D) conference, I gladly offered to speak. There’s an amazing list of speakers, and while the conference is free, all donations go to support local food banks – all of these things are wins in my books!

The Alchemy Lab is happening on May 9th and 10th, and I’ll be speaking at 12pm PST on the 10th – Top Tips: Articulate Storyline 360. Even if you fancy yourself well-versed in Storyline, I’m confident I can pull out a tip or two for all skill-levels to help make you a more well-oiled and efficient developer, so I look forward to seeing you there!

2. Animal Crossing

I am not a gamer. I enjoy Super Mario games, having grown up on them. I love me some Ratchet & Clank, but I would never consider myself particularly good at playing video games. Enter Animal Crossing: A game that came to market when everyone in the world needed a mindless distraction from all that’s going on. I. AM. OBSESSED.

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Again – I know I’ve been absent on the blog and in my usual L&D circles, but I’m planning a comeback. Things have just been a bit more difficult than usual for me (and likely many of us), so your patience is appreciated.

ATDTK 2020 Day 1 Recap

ATDTK 2020 is kicking off today and I’m incredibly excited to participate in my first TK, and the new format that the programming committee has spent a lot of time and considering. Today’s a busy one in that I am facilitating a coffee chat, attending sessions, and then delivering my own playground session.

Coffee Chat

The morning begins by hanging out with several lovely ladies, discussing e-learning and struggles within training and development – specifically in relation to the complexities of training non-trainers to develop pedagogically sound learning experiences for their peers. We discussed issues of attrition, cost and return on investment, and the challenges associated with spending the time to make learning stick with that particular audience. We also discussed working from home and being able to create separation between work and home at the end of the day.

Keynote: Marco Tempest

Marco Tempest kicks off ATDTK 2020 this morning by explaining how magicians use psychological principles to hone their craft. Some of you may not know who Marco Tempest is – he is a magician who uses digital technologies in his performances.

He explains the concept of change blindness by having us choose a card, and then has ‘our card’ disappear. The way this trick works is that we experience change blindness where we do not recall the other card options. Our eye sees everything, but our mind processes it a bit differently.

Marco creates illusions, explaining that our imagination is more powerful than our reasoning, and while the topic and illusions are incredibly captivating, I find myself excited by his presentation techniques and the use of audio to make the illusions being presented feel more magical.

“A good idea can come from anywhere, and so too can advice.” – Marco Tempest, 2020

Transitioning to the topic of storytelling, Marco explains how when he creates magic, he is creating a narrative of events which distracts participants from the mechanics. The illusion was seen, but not remembered.

Every performance in magic is a field test for receiving face-to-face feedback of the user experience. When users get to interact with the experience, this is when we will receive the most valuable of feedback – there is no group think.

“Human beings stay the same. They always want magic.” – Marco Tempest, 2020

Being excited, engaged, and amazed is something that all of learners want. We need to stay curious to ensure that we are focusing on the destination for those learners.

General Thoughts: Marco Tempest is an incredibly motivating speaker, a fantastic storyteller, and I now have bigger presentation and development goals. I want to create magic!

The Rest of The Day

For the rest of the day, I hung out almost exclusively in the Playground. The Playground is a new format that the programming team came up with; basically, we all have headsets and we can tune into stages and sessions by adjusting the station on the headset. Presenters are presenting simultaneously, but you can attend any session you want…even covertly.

I’m very interested to hear the feedback/reception of the playground, because it’s a neat concept and allowed me to station myself at a side table to do a bit of work, while also tuning into the sessions I didn’t want to miss. The one feedback I had for this format is that walking into the room, with the lighting and all of people was that you expected the room to be buzzing with sound, but it felt more like a library. It felt like having conversations with peers was going to disrupt other people, when really those people were fine – they had headsets on and were listening to a presentation.

Be Free, Lance

One of yesterday’s playground sessions was mine. I presented essentially a case study of my experiences as a freelancer – things I didn’t know when I started, things I learned, and things I wish someone would have told me. The topic of freelancing is always a good one, because there’s always intrigue and curiosity.

The session went well, attendees asked a lot of great questions, and I’d be happy to do it again in the future!

After this last session of the day, I packed it in because it was 9:15pm my time and I was beat!

ATD TechKnowledge 2020 – I’ll Be There!

I know that it’s cliche to say, but this year is flying by! I can’t believe that next week I’ll be traveling to San Jose to participate in ATDTK. This will be my first TK, and I’m super excited to explore the new format. I’ll be speaking and doing a bunch of other events, so below I’ll outline a few places where you can find me. You will also likely find me catching many of the amazing keynotes and sessions, so if you see me in passing, make sure to say hi! If you aren’t attending, be sure to keep tabs on the blog, because I’ll be posting daily recaps!

February 5th

7:00am – 7:45am

Are you an early bird? Will time travel have you waking up at 1, 2, 3am? I’ll be right there with you, so come have coffee and chat with me! I’ll be facilitating a coffee chat in LL21A.

4:15pm – 5:00pm

I have spent many years of my life freelancing in many different combinations of my professional life – as a full-time student and full-time employee, as a full-time employee and full-time freelancer, as a full-time employee at two jobs and as a part-time freelancer (THAT was a lot), and as a full-time employee and part-time freelancer.

I have learned a lot of things, and within my session, Be Free, Lance, on the Advance Stage in the Playground, I’m hoping to bring you all of my tips, tricks, and recommendations. Should you follow them? Who knows. Will I have something for everyone? I’m sure that I will. For me, freelancing has been a definite ride, and as I’ve grown professionally, I’ve learned that freelancing has served different purposes for me at different stages in my life. I’m excited to share all the highs and lows with you!

February 6th

8:15am – 8:45am 

There are a handful of us doing author meet and greets at this time slot in Hall 1 Concourse. If you’ve ever been interested in getting your books signed, asking questions, or just saying hello, make sure you swing by. You’ll get to meet me and several of my very favourite people (Tim Slade, Hadiya Nurridin, and Karl Kap)!

3:30pm – 5:30pm

Come join me for a two-hour hands on learning session, Improving UI With a Customized Learning Experience in Articulate Storyline 360, in 211D. I’m super excited for this session! I’ll be walking participants through a custom player, how to program the player, and how to program interface elements. I will also be providing tips for where to find free (or affordable) UI elements. If you’ve attended the pre-conference certificate workshop on Articulate Storyline, this session will surely allow you to apply many of the basic concepts you’ve learned while moving you closer to pushing the limits of Articulate Storyline, and re-conceptualizing what a Storyline player needs to look like…plus, there will be cats!

February 7th

8:00am – 10:00am

If the create-a-cool-player-and-hang-out-with-space-cats session sounded rad (and it will be!), but you had a competing session to attend on the 6th, I’ll be doing an encore of Improving UI With a customized Learning Experience in Articulate Storyline 360, in 211D.

Again, I’m super excited to check out ATDTK, to facilitate some sessions, to experience the new format, and to meet tons of new pals! I’ll see you there (or here on the recaps)!

Day in the Life – Senior eLearning Developer

Several years back, I was asked to share what a day in my life looks like, and I did. However, it is still one of the most frequently asked questions I get, so I thought I’d share an update. I’m the Senior eLearning Developer at Traliant, where I spend my days building out different types of compliance training for various clients.

I work remotely, and I love it. I have a cozy home office, a space heater, and all of my pets to keep me company!

This time I’m sharing a Monday, which is one of my lighter meeting days. And wowee, it was a very productive Monday! Note: My days usually aren’t so translation heavy – a day like this happens every few months or so for me.

630am – 8am

I wake up at 630am, hop in the shower, and sift through my emails, and respond to some, while I eat breakfast. Breakfast is a smoothie. At around 715am, I dry my hair, get dressed, and hop in the car to take my husband to work. I drop Joe off, spin by a cafe on the way home to grab a latte, and then I come home to get settled into work.

8am – 930am

I fill all of my vessels (coffee, tea, water) and retreat to my office, where I get a jump on some translations before the rest of my team gets online. I manage to get through all of a French translation before hopping on a call with one of my coworkers.

We catch one another up on our weekends, talk about what we have to get done today, and then we get to work again.

945am – 1230pm

I finish a Hungarian translation and start a Norwegian translation before our weekly team meeting (we meet daily, but have a larger one on Mondays).

Our team runs through a deep dive of all the projects we’re working on and their statuses.

1230pm – 1pm

I get Oliver (our dog) ready for his lunchtime walk. It’s quite cold and salty out today, so he concedes to his nemesis – the booties, and we’re off. Lucky for him, there’s a lot of fresh, fluffy snow to rub his snout and body all over…I plan for a longer walk for this reason, even though it only takes us half an hour!

1pm – 230pm

I finish up with the Norwegian translation and start running through some test publishes for the next release of one of our courses. I come up with some findings, but they leave me with more questions than when I started. We’ll see what conclusions we reach tomorrow.

230 – 345pm

There are a couple of drag and drop interactions in the new release that I need to program, so I do that. Once I’m finished, I tackle my last translation for the day – Spanish. I upload the course file and send all published translations out for QA before heading out to pick Joe up from work.

430pm 

When I get back home, I fill out my planner with tomorrow’s tasks, and power down my office for the night.

Now that I’ve wrapped my Traliant work for the day, I’m going to make some dinner and settle in for some work on my ATDTK 2020 sessions.

Here’s a time-lapse of about 4 hours of work distilled into 5 minutes (don’t come for my posture…I KNOW!):

2019 Recap and 2020 Goals

For the past bunch of years I’ve done an annual recap and goal commitment (or…goal), and this year is no different. 2019 was a wild one for me. Things that I did:

  • Started a new job with Traliant as their Senior eLearning Developer;
  • Helped Traliant win Best Video Solution at Learning Solutions 2019;
  • Had knee surgery; and
  • Delivered several workshops and sessions.

Now, let’s see how I did with my 2019 goals:

Personal Goals:

  • Slow down and enjoy the present; –  I’m not great at this. There’s a theme.
  • Have knee surgery to repair the torn meniscus; – Had microfracture surgery in July to repair busted cartilage and a torn meniscus
  • Rehab the knee and then return to a maintaining a consistent exercise schedule; – Still doing this; the road to recovery is longer than anticipated. I’m in a nice fancy brace for the next 13 months
  • Make additional dietary changes (maybe get rid of dairy?); and – Definitely did not do this
  • Hit the cottage at least four times for max relaxing. – We only got here ONCE this year….waaaah!

Business Goals:

  • WORK LESS; – NOPE! Definitely did not do this.
  • Work smarter – implement processes that will make my work-life easier and more efficient; – Not really a process, but I did finally hire an accountant and it was glorious.
  • Hire an accountant (something that I’ve been long overdue for); – See above!
  • Maintain relationships with my existing clients; – Done! I worked with one primary client outside of my regular work.
  • Invest in sprucing up the blog; –DONE! I had my bestie, Erin, do this at the start of 2019, and AMEN!
  • Blog regularly; and – I published, on average, 2.67 posts per month.
  • Continue to grow Sprout E-Learning. – Also kinda sorta; Many folks signed up for existing courses, but I was unable to push out additional courses because I need clones.

2020 Goals

Now, my goals this year are pretty practical and light. They’re a bit repetitive, but this year I’m trying to take some of the pressure off myself.

Personal Goals:

  • Continue my knee recovery and get back to consistent exercise;
  • Cut out gluten, despite my love of pizza, for the sake of my migraines;
  • Plan an epic vacation with my husband; and
  • Hit the cottage at least 4 times.

Business Goals:

  • Give myself permission to say no and not feel guilty about it/reduce pressure;
  • Speak at, or participate in, at least 3 conferences;
  • Read at least 4 industry-related books;
  • Participate regularly in industry chats (e.g., lrnchat or guildchat);
  • Blog regularly; and
  • Continue to grow Sprout E-Learning.

Articulate Storyline: 3 Things I’m Excited About – 2019

If ever there was a time for an Excited Jonah Hill Gif reference! OH. BOY! THE. TIME. IS. NOW!

I’m ramping up to deliver a session on Top Tips (when using) Articulate Storyline, and boy. oh. boy. Have the Articulate Storyline 360 updates in recent months been coming in handy!

#1 – The New Trigger Workflow

Holy (excuse my language) shit (or poop, or caca, or amazeballs)! THIS. IS. A. GAME. CHANGER! I once got a sneak peek of this about a year ago over breakfast, and let me tell you…my eggs were not as exciting as I had hoped for afterward.

 

It’s smart, it’s intuitive, it’s modern…I can now start to type the action I’m looking for or the occurrence I’m looking for and it narrows down my options. Holy crap! This makes things SO MUCH FASTER in terms of workflow!

In the Triggers Panel, you can also use the linked dropdown (for ANY portion of the trigger programming) to quickly adjust what needs adjusting -swooooon-! I will say that this does call to the front and centre the importance of labeling things on your timeline, but hey – I’ll lecture you about that in another post. Today we’re joyous.

#2 – SLIDE NUMBERS!!!

I recently posted a screencast showing one method of creating a visual progress meter using the new slide number functionality, and let me tell you…you have so many options when it comes to this. The slide number functionality provides you with a bunch of built-in variables:

And, you can use these variables in many ways to achieve your progress meter creation goals! Stay tuned for other options! This is functionality that I consider an entire game changer. It gives you permission to stop manually setting variables on a slide-by-slide basis, and for this we should praise all of the deities simultaneously. I also like that Articulate is providing you with options, because one progress meter is not the same for all.

#3 – The Recover a Corrupt File Feature

If you’ve been working in Storyline for awhile, you probably know that corrupted files are just a reality. Well – one thing that’s nice is that in a recent update, Articulate has provided a feature that allows you to recover a recently corrupted file, or at a minimum notifies you whether there is a temporary file stored elsewhere.

I cannot explain how valuable this is. I have spent a lot of money on hopefully software purchases claiming to recover my lost data…I have spent hours of my life redoing project files…I’m pretty sure that if this feature would have come out 5 years ago, I would have much fewer grey hairs. I would also likely not have bored 75-100 people to tears in my 2016 Articulate Roadshow: Toronto session (I’m sorry to any of you who were in attendance…though, you likely at some point since then have heeded all of the advice I provided), as now they have one less thing to worry about when it comes to backing up their files.