Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

Instructional Design

Easy Ways to Participate in Learning Activities

As folks operating within the field of education (or training and development, however you prefer to look at it), it’s critical that we continue foraging our own learning journeys. Admittedly, I’ve been a bit slack with this. Why? I freelanced my butt off, quit my corporate gig, started my own business, and scored a fantastic gig within the post-secondary education sector – just to name a few. However, I’m letting things slow down for me a little bit, and I’m hoping to be able to participate more frequently in the coming months.

With that being said, I’ve been keeping my eye on a few great collaborative learning opportunities, primarily existing within the social media sphere. These are great, because they don’t involve a whole lot of time and you get to learn from a group of colleagues with similar interests! Here are some learning opportunities that have been on my radar:

E-Learning Heroes Weekly Challenges  – I participate in these when time allows, and I am presently challenging myself to complete all of the current challenges and keep pace with new ones.

Learn Camp – A self-directed learning experience designed to allow participants to explore new learning concepts and technologies. I’ve seen a lot of Twitter activity under the #LearnCamp hash tag, and catching up will be my goal during some upcoming downtime!

Lrnchat – Lrnchat is an active chat-based community of involvement over on Twitter (hash tag #lrnchat). Participants meet on Twitter each Thursday and participate in online discussion of questions that have been asked. People get really into this one, and I would definitely recommend participating if your Thursday evenings aren’t currently tied up!

OLC Online Teaching Certificate – This program is presently in my line of sight as an opportunity for professional development within my on-site role. It’s a great opportunity to expand upon my Instructional Design experience, while allowing me to contribute more effectively to the design and development of online courses with university faculty members.

Online Learning Consortium Annual Conference 2014 – This year I’ll be sitting in on streamed sessions for the annual conference, and there are SO MANY available! I’m pretty excited. Especially since I wanted to hit up DevLearn this year and wasn’t selected as a presenter (this time around). Both events occur around the same time (late October), so I’m happy to be able to participate in one.

E-Learning Heroes Roadshows – After becoming more active in the E-Learning Heroes Community and being asked to present at the Toronto event back in July, I was hooked! If you have an opportunity to attend one of these events, you’re definitely in for a treat!

I’ve also been looking into a PhD program, but that’s neither here nor there (until I get accepted – which might be this year, next year, the year after – who knows). It’s a long-term goal I have, so I might as well get a jump on it, even if I’m still in the infancy stage.

Free Portfolio Template for Articulate Storyline

Next week, I’ll be presenting at the Articulate E-Learning Heroes Roadshow in Denver! This is exciting for several reasons:

  1. I’ll get to meet some new colleagues and reunite with others;
  2. I’ll be presenting on how to build your e-learning portfolio, which I did in Toronto, but it’s super important, so I’m doing it again;
  3. My husband and I are sticking around for the rest of the week to have a mini-moon together;
  4. I’ll get to meet the lovely Erin (and Anthony); and
  5. Hiking, coffee, beer, VACATION!

…just to name a few.

In any event, I’m changing some things up with the presentation for Denver (based on some feedback from Toronto and also some personal revisions). This time around, in addition to some of the templates I linked to by other E-Learning Heroes Community members, I’ll be linking to one of my own. Today I came up with a very simple portfolio template (seen below). You can swap out the sample images, links, colours, and personal information to make it your own, so go ahead and get on that!

 

P_Small

Click here to view the full interaction.

Click here to download the free portfolio template for Articulate Storyline.

Terminology Tuesday: Universal Instructional Design (UID)

This week I sat in on a celebration of teaching and learning workshop where the theme was geared toward understanding student differences and enhancing student experience, specifically in terms of sense of belonging and accessibility. The topic of Universal Instructional Design (UID) came up, and while I was nodding my head to the point of pulling a muscle, I think many of my colleagues were at a loss for words. Now that’s not saying they all were, but I was probably the only one sustaining injury during those slides of the presentation. As a result, I’m planning a workshop on the topic of UID. In any event, I figured that if 75 people in a small workshop were wondering about UID, I thought a pocket of the Internet might be curious too, so here we go!

Universal Instructional Design (UID)

UID involves the careful consideration of all potential learner needs in the design and development of a curriculum and/or course. It involves thinking about how you can appeal to all individuals, enhancing the user experience, without hindering the content and learning objectives. Part of the bigger problem might be that not all instructors know how to write proper learning objectives, but that’s a problem for another day.

There are seven primary principles of UID:

  1. Equitable Use;
  2. Flexibility in Use;
  3. Simple and Intuitive;
  4. Perceptible Information;
  5. Tolerance for Error;
  6. Low Physical Effort; and
  7. Size and Space for Approach and Use.

Some camps differ in their explanation of principles for UID, but all of the above seem to be considerations in most, if not all.

Now, what this really means is that you want to appeal to the lowest common denominator (and no, I don’t mean ‘dumbing things down’). Meaning that when developing your curriculum and/or course, you should think about making it as accessible as possible. For example, if you’re a science teacher who wants to teach your students about the lifecycle of a bog, design your curriculum to bring the bog to the students instead of requiring students to attend a field trip to observe a bog in its natural habitat. While the latter might be a neat way to engage your students, it automatically excludes those who have physical hindrances (e.g. are in a wheelchair or have allergies). Instead, you can change your way of thinking (and possibly learn something yourself) by creating a small-scale bog lifecycle in the classroom! Fun and outside of the box.

In my world of distance education, I encounter a lot of faculty members who are getting stuck behind the technology and what it ‘can’t’ do, that they get stuck in their problem solving. Having been a distance student, I have good insight into ways of enhancing the student experience within distance education, and it really starts with UID. Students enrol in distance education for a variety of reasons, but one of the top reasons is: Accessibility. If students are enrolling for reasons related to accessibility, shouldn’t we be ensuring an equitable user experience to traditional classroom experiences? I should think so!

Some Helpful Resources:

E-Learning Heroes #2: What’s Your Best Tabs Interaction? (Free Template)

The Concept

This challenge was to create our best tabs interaction; while I don’t necessarily consider this to be the best tabs interaction I’ve developed, I do think it’s a cute little one! The challenge specifically asked for five tabs, but I used four because a colour palette drove my inspiration.

The Method

I was trolling around Colour Lovers and stumbled upon a pretty colour palette, so I skimmed through the e-learning challenges to see which challenge I could best apply the colour palette to.

Then, I decided I wanted to do an in and out type of theme – reminiscent of those pop-up books you used to read as a kid, with the tabs to drag items across the page.

Once I had the general idea, I created some tabs and ‘pages’, adding shadows to the pages and tabs to emphasize that each is a separate item. Then I created a layer for each tab, and when selected, the appropriate tab would display.

The Result

Tabbed_Interaction

Click here for a demo of the full interaction.

Click here to download the Articulate Storyline template of this free tabbed interaction.

3 Great Cross-Training Options for Instructional Designers

People are always asking me what skills they should learn in order to be a successful Instructional Designer (ID), and there really is no hard fast recommendation. There isn’t one formula that will spit out the perfect ID, but there are a ton of adjacent competencies that IDs might want to focus on. In addition to enchanting your mind with new information and ways of doing things, these suggestions may also make you a bit more marketable within the ID world.

1. Education

IDs come from all walks of life – I had a Linguistics background when I hit the ground running as an ID, but it truly is important to know where you came from (so to speak) and learn about the principles behind Instructional Design. This could be through formal education, through books, or through a community of peers (just to name a few options). Whatever you choose, be eager to understand why it is you’re doing the things you’re doing within your Instructional Design, and how you can improve the user experience and optimize success (for the program AND the student).

2. Graphic Design

Some IDs pride themselves in being creative and capable graphic designers, but there is a large population of IDs who have what feels like zero creativity (me on most days) and who have minimal artistic ability (me, me, me!). In my first corporate gig, I was spoiled with a team of multimedia developers who would cater to most all of my whims and requests. Now as an independent, I’m often left to my own devices (or to sub-contracting out graphic design projects). With that being said, I do know my (truncated) way around Adobe Photoshop, and in a pinch I can do some very basic things (you also might not believe what a useful resource PowerPoint can be!). Here are some resources I would recommend for brushing up on some basic graphic design skills:

3. Programming Languages

This here is something I don’t have a lot of experience in, but it’s worth learning how to code basic HTML, JavaScript, and CSS in the event that you need some of this code for your e-learning projects. Now, again, this is not an essential skill of a ‘good’ ID, it’s just a nice-to-have skill and likely will come in handy every now and again. There are other roads you can go down if you’re genuinely enthused by learning programming languages – e.g. Learning something like Unity to program 3D scenarios, but I reckon you should research further than this post if you’re serious about learning programming languages…because I’m not the guru for you! Within authoring environments, code can be handy to know even to just troubleshoot why a Learning Management System isn’t ‘reading’ your SCORM package despite you having properly ‘SCORM’ed’ it.

E-Learning Challenge #15: Create a Radiant Template with Pantone’s Colour of the Year

Pantone announced that the 2014 colour of the year was Radiant Orchid. And how I feel about it? – What’s pretty for none is hideous to some. I’m sorry, Pantone. You dropped the ball on the colour for me this year. Purple is one of my very favourite colours, but this shade of purple is just acrid to me.

The Concept

This challenge was to create a ‘radiant’ template using Radiant Orchid as the colour palette of choice. I’m going to sound like I’m making excuses here, and I am. But, I truly struggled with creating this template because I found everything I created to just look so vile. However, perhaps some of you appreciate Radiant Orchid and will also appreciate these layout templates I developed – who knows?!

The Method

First, I checked out the colour and applied it as a background colour to one slide. I wasn’t a fan, but I had to move forward. I found adding a gradient helped a bit, so I did that and went with it.

Then, I considered several basic screen layouts and sought about developing them, added some navigational elements (e.g. chevrons instead of the back/next button default), and tossed some placeholder layers in for the buttons.

The Result

The fruits of my labour were six screen layouts that you can customize any which way you choose – I tried to appeal to some of the most commonly encountered layouts, so hopefully they will address your template needs. Below, you will see a screenshot of one of the layouts included, and you will be provided with a link to the demo and the downloadable .story file. Go forth, spread the cheer of Pantone’s colour of the year!

Screen Shot 2014-08-28 at 9.23.53 AM

Click here to view a demo of the full Radiant Orchid template.

Click here to download the full Radiant Orchid .story file for Articulate Storyline.