Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

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Screencast Monday: Uploading Storyline Projects to Articulate Tempshare

One of my favourite ways of uploading and sharing projects for Subject Matter Expert (SME) review is to use Articulate Tempshare. Once again, the lovely folks over at Articulate have come up with a fantastic (and generous) solution to temporarily storing our Articulate outputs, and it has come in handy for me on more than one occasion.

What is Tempshare? Articulate Tempshare is a temporary store for your Articulate project outputs; it allows you to upload web-based project outputs and stores them for 10-days, providing you with a link to view your project. It is SO HELPFUL!

Another great use for Tempshare would be to share files with other developers (or Articulate) for troubleshooting purposes.

E-Learning Challenge #117 – Visual Design Tips for Cover Slides

The Concept

The idea behind this challenge was to use a custom background, coupled with a visual design tip from Tom Kuhlmann, that illustrates how to use a visual echo technique in e-learning design.

The Method

Smashing Magazine recently posted a freebie download for some super cute barista and coffee lover icons. I downloaded them, but hadn’t found the opportunity to use them, so they were my muse.

I selected one of the icons from the set (the coffee sign), applied some transparency, made it into a background image for the main slide, and then set about creating a tabbed-style interaction on the left-hand side, with the same coffee image (with no transparency) as a logo of sorts.

Using several of the other barista icons, I created appropriately labeled tabs, and added layers for each of these items. Within the layers, I added a larger image of the tab icon and an explanation for how to make that type of beverage.

Finally, I customized the player by removing the navigational elements and adjusting some of the base colours.

The Result

Screen Shot 2016-03-22 at 8.30.26 PM

Click here to view the full interaction.

Terminology Tuesday: Open Educational Resources (OERs)

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There’s been a rumbling around the university for the past couple of years, but more so in recent months, about Open Educational Resources (OERs) and the place they may or may not have in our course offerings. With all of the buzz, it seemed like a good time to chat a bit about what OERs are.

OERs

OERs are not a new concept; in fact, UNESCO founded the term way back in 2002. However, they do seem to be more prominent in modern digital learning. The concept behind OERs is to have educational resources in the public domain, accessible to all, and OERs would remove limitations (typically in place via copyright) when it comes to use and redistribution of materials.

The main benefits of OERs are: increased access and free, the latter of which is incredibly beneficial when it comes to required texts used in post-secondary education, which traditionally have been quite costly. Considering the financial obligations the students of the world are already taking on in order to receive high-quality educations, textbook costs are one element that OERs may provide financial relief.

Resources

Screencast Monday: Custom Feedback Layers in Articulate Storyline

This week’s Screencast Monday is a throwback from last year. It illustrates one way – some may say an unconventional way, but one that is still functional – of creating custom feedback layers in Articulate Storyline. This approach does not involve using Feedback Masters, and may be effective in situations where you want to use multiple styles for multiple questions without having to create multiple feedback masters.

5 Reasons I Love Articulate Storyline 2

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It is no secret that I’ve been having a love affair with Articulate Storyline 2 for the past couple of years, so I thought I would share my top 5 reasons why I love this product! The only way I could love it any more than I already do is if it were to come to my house and make me coffee each morning.

#1 – The Efficiency

Storyline 2 allows me to enhance my overall workflow efficiency by making life easy. I can streamline my development using scenes and with all of the built-in functionality, I seldom need to go outside of Storyline to create additional assets (e.g. screen recordings, audio narration, etc.).

#2 – The Customizable Interface

Storyline 2 allows me to customize my development interface by providing the ability to dock/undock panel, save and use templates, and add commonly used functions to the quick access bar. Such functionality goes a long way in helping me streamline my development.

#3 – The Options

There are SO MANY options in Storyline 2, and these options really take away the need for using multiple products. With features such as motion path animations, scroll panels, and slider interactions, you can truly create almost anything you dream. Diving deeper into the advanced functionality of Storyline 2, you can leverage variables and conditions to help bend stories to your will, and sprinkling JavaScript throughout your stories can really help your stories stand out from the crowd!

#4 – The Support

Nothing, in my experience, has compared to the customer service and outstanding support of the Articulate team. Everyone I’ve interacted with has gone above and beyond to ensure that responses are dealt with expediently, support issues are resolved quickly, and that my overall product experience is beyond pleasant. The added support of the E-Learning Heroes Community, with Articulate staff and community members is amazing, and makes a huge difference when it comes to product support, sharing ideas, receiving/giving constructive criticism, and promotion (seriously – if you’re not part of the community, get on it!).

#5 – The Learning Experience

There is always something new to learn! With all of the functions built-in to Storyline 2, it seems as though there are endless possibilities when it comes to combining elements to create new types of interactions. This allows me to learn and share new information with community members and my blog audience!

Storyline makes for a wonderful muse – I loved writing Articulate Storyline Essentials, and I’m just about finished with Mastering Articulate Storyline, so please stay tuned for that – I pull some amazing examples shared by community members and provide many pages of my own Storyline antidotes to help you harness the power of Storyline 2 and truly take your e-learning development to the next level!