Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

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E-Learning Challenge #129 – Choose Your Own E-Learning Topic

First – Hats off to David for not doing this sooner! – I can only imagine how tiring it can be to come up with challenges and examples for challenges each week.

The Concept

This week’s challenge was to choose your own e-learning challenge topic and create an example for that topic, with the caveat that it must be an original challenge (a feat when you consider there have been 129 challenges – go, David!).

The Method

I had a dream about this last night…well. More specifically, I had a dream about colour palettes and one of my favourite websites, Coolors.co. I love the colour generator feature of this website because it makes my life a whole heck of a lot easier when my creativity is waning and I need some colour inspiration for my e-learning projects.

With that, my e-learning challenge topic is: App-Inspired E-Learning Resources. The challenge will be to create an e-learning resource inspired by one of your favourite, existing, applications.

To achieve a coolors-inspired resource, I tossed 5 rectangles on a slide, changed the colours for each rectangle, added the hex code to the bottom of the shape, and modified the player to appear as desired. After duplicating each slide and adjusting colours and hex codes appropriately, I added a trigger that would jump to the next slide when the user presses the Space key.

While this coolers-inspired resource is not as all-encompassing as the actual app itself, I feel like it’s a pretty good representation and it can definitely be expanded upon with an infinite number of slides/colour palettes.

The Result

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 9.18.36 AM

To view the full interaction, Click Here.

To download the .story file, Click Here.

Screencast Monday: Extending Slide Content in Articulate Storyline – Part 3: Scroll Panels

Continuing with the theme of extending slide content in Articulate Storyline, this week I’m showing you just how easy it is to extend slide content within a ‘container’ by using a scroll panel. If after this demo you’re interested in learning a bit more about scroll panels, check out the Automatic Scrolling Effect demo!

(Also – Please excuse the sound of my dog gnawing on his toes)

Terminology Tuesday: Development Plans

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This week I thought it might be useful to talk about development plans, as I work within them nearly everyday within my current role.

What is a Development Plan?

A development plan is a document that outlines an entire course. Typically, it will consist of the following information:

  • Course Developer, including contact information
  • General Course Information, such as:
    • Course Name
    • Course Title
    • Calendar Description
    • Required Text
    • Credit Weight
    • Overall Course Goals
    • When the course will be offered or revised
    • Prerequisites
    • Enrolment information
  • High-Level Leaning Objectives
  • Module Information, including:
    • Module Names
    • Module-Specific Learning Objectives
    • Topics
    • Learning Activities, which may or may not be assessed
    • References or Resources (e.g. module readings/videos/etc.)
    • Assignment Information
  • Assessment and Evaluation Strategy

Wow. That’s a lot of information. Why is a Development Plan important?

That’s exactly why development plans are important – because that IS a lot of information! Development plans serve as a course outline, and streamline things once the course developer gets to the development phase. A well written development plan will have a lot of elements that have been fleshed out and are ready to be copied from the development plan into the course site.

Development plans are also important because they allow key reviewers (e.g. department chairs, subject matter experts, etc.) to review the plan and make necessary changes or recommendations prior to entering the development phase…and it’s a lot easier to modify a Word document than it is to modify content in an authoring tool.

In online learning, development plans may also come in handy when it comes to fleshing out your activities and assessment strategies with an instructional designer, especially if you’re used to teaching in more traditional mediums (e.g. in a classroom).

Screencast Monday: Extending Slide Content in Storyline Part 1 – Slide Layers

My apologies for the late post; I was going to do a first impression type of screencast with a new technology that has me pretty excited, but there was a bit of a glitch during the demo, and I’m still waiting for technical support to get back to me. Maybe you’ll see the demo next week…maybe not at all – who knows?!

This week we’ll look at how you can easily extend slide content using layers in Articulate Storyline.

Understanding all of the ways in which you can extend slide content is essential as it may allow you to reduce overall slide count in your projects, leading to a more streamlined and efficient project structure.

Terminology Tuesday: Sandwiching

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Following on the coat tails of last week’s discussion of Tell, Show, Do, I figured I would share another training tip I learned during my tenure at Starbucks: Sandwiching. And no – I’m not talking about the process of making a killer Peanut Butter and Jelly.

Sandwiching?

Sandwiching is a fun training term that is related to professional development and training. The premise is that when providing feedback to someone, you sandwich the constructive criticism between two positives.

This method is effective with regard to providing feedback because it gives the recipient relevant compliments on a task, with a small constructive criticism of the task – something for them to improve on in the future. It lessens the blow of the critique, which can be critical, especially if you work with some very sensitive souls.

The important thing with this method is that all points must be relevant. Below, I’ll illustrate a bad sandwiching conversation and a good sandwiching conversation.

Bad Sandwiching

Supervisor: Hey, Becky! I just thought I would tell you that your new polo shirt fits you really well, but you suck at making lattes. Great hairstyle – did you just get it cut?!

This is an example of bad sandwiching because all points are not relevant to the constructive criticism. The positives are superfluous. Nice compliments, but a terrible training strategy.

Good Sandwiching

Supervisor: Hey, Becky! Your milk aeration is on point! Although, when you make your lattes, could you please hold the foam back with a spoon or give the milk time to separate from the foam? Otherwise your lattes will be too light and will be closer to a cappuccino – more foam than milk. You did also do really well keeping steaming your milk to the appropriate temperature.

This is an example of good sandwiching because all points are relevant to the constructive criticism.

Good sandwiching conversations may take a bit longer to have, but that’s because they aren’t superfluous. They have the goal of hitting three relevant points, all providing feedback related to the task at hand, in this case, making a latte.