Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

Screencast

Top Blog Posts of 2018

First off, I cannot believe that it is mid-December already. I know everyone says this, but wowee! 2018 blew by!

I’m always asked for better categorization of my posts, and I really want to do that (honestly, I’ve wanted to overhaul my site for YEARS now), but I haven’t yet perfected cloning technology, found someone that I trust to overhaul the site for me, or discovered a way of increasing the amount of time in a day…I know. Excuses.

In lieu of overhauling the site, I’ve opted to curate a list of my most popular blog posts of 2018, and I’ll attempt to categorize them as much as possible. Enjoy!

Screencasts:

E-Learning/Instructional Design/Freelance Advice:

Portfolio:

Conferences:

Random:

Why I Use Assistive Technology As a Presenter

Earlier in the year, I posted about why my memory sucks – how a softball injury has affected me. I truly appreciate all of the kind words I received from that post, and I continue to forage on with my sucky memory. I present on things I’m passionate about to some folks who may not entirely understand why I do things the way I do.

Brief synopsis:

  • I took a softball to the face several years ago (playing softball, not a rogue bystander injury)
  • It took 2 years of a liquid diet, maxing out all of my dental/physiotherapy/massage coverage, and a jaw surgery to address the physical issues
  • I now suffer from post-concussion syndrome, and haven’t quite figured out the nuances of my new memory
  • This injury has forced me (for now) to defer my Ed.D because I am no longer confident writing 100+ page papers that require me to remember things I wrote several paragraphs earlier
  • I am still learning strategies for dealing with my memory issues and welcome any suggestions

This year, I presented at several events, notably DevLearn…where I facilitated a 1-day pre-conference certificate workshop on Introduction to Instructional Design and a BYOD session on using Variables in Articulate Storyline 360.

In both of those sessions, I addressed a big of housekeeping: why I use assistive technology to help me present. Basically, it’s so that I can get all of the information I need to get to my audience. I understand that at times I may seem flakey or scatter-brained, but I assure you it’s not because I’m making excuses for myself. As someone who also suffers from anxiety, when I trip up during a presentation, it also stresses me out. I want everyone to feel like they’ve been able to take something valuable from my sessions, and I want to seem like a competent industry professional.

But….when session evaluation time rolls around, opening the files is always a moment of induced anxiety. You’ll never please 100% of the attendees or participants, and I’m fine with that, but I always kind of hold my breath while I read through to see what folks are saying about the assistive technology. This year I was incredibly surprised by all of the supportive feedback I received. I received a lot of great suggestions that I will take forward with me in my session-delivering-journey, and again, I will always be receptive to this type of constructive criticism.

As I work to finalize a presentation for my session with the E-Learning Guild for their Spotlight, I thought I would record a quick screencast that shows you how I create my session notes.

Check out the screencast below!

Screencast: Real-Time Build of Drag and Drop Interaction in Articulate Storyline 360

In this screencast, I’m doing a real-time walkthrough of how I create a quick categorization drag and drop interaction in Articulate Storyline 360. Watch me awkwardly fumble through this recording before I’ve finished my morning coffee (hint…I could have streamlined things better had I been more caffeinated…I am TIRED today!).

Check out the screencast below!

Screencast: Insert Questions from Question Bank into Your Story in Articulate Storyline 360

In today’s screencast, I’m showing you how to insert questions as a new draw from question bank into your story in Articulate Storyline 360. Using the question bank is a very nice way of reducing the volume of slides in your story (just work out of the question bank!) and streamlining your development.

Check out the screencast below!

Screencast: Troubleshooting Audio Not Playing in Articulate Storyline 360 via Parallels

Today I experienced something I have never experienced in all of my time using Articulate software via Parallels on my Mac…all of a sudden (I say this because it had been working perfectly fine earlier in the day), I could no longer hear audio that I had inserted into a project in Articulate Storyline.

  • Not while in the Audio Editor
  • Not while previewing on the timeline
  • Not in preview mode

Video was also being screwy (freezing on the initial frame, while the scrub bar played through with no audio in preview. Today was not a day that I needed these dramatics, so I sent out a panicked tweet.

As I was about to hop on a call with Alex (@StyleLearn), Articulate called me…and AMEN, because I had not yet gotten to the point of desperation of submitting a support ticket. They could tell that I needed them today.

The lovely Victor walked me through adjusting sound settings in Parallels, and it worked! Although, I’m still not sure why Parallels was all of a sudden deciding not to pick up my Bose headphones, even though I could hear through them the same audio files in my Storyline project in other applications (such as iTunes)…weird, no?

Whatever it was, I’m glad it wasn’t a poltergeist, and I was relieved to have it resolved so quickly (THANK YOU, Articulate!). If you find yourself in this weird predicament (now or 10 years from now, don’t worry, I’ll metadata tag the heck out of this post), hopefully this screencast helps you out and saves you some sanity.

Check out the screencast below!