Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Day in the Life

May 14, 2015

Thanks ttcInnovations for the opportunity to linkup with other bloggers and share a sneak peek into my daily routine! Everyone who’s participating is sharing their own stories so check them out: ttcInnovations, Jackie Van Nice, Rachel Barnum, Melissa Milloway.

5:45am

The Wake-Up Light has been gradually getting brighter for the past 15 minutes, but I’m not ready to get out of bed! By 6am, my husband is reminding me that the shower is free (aka ‘get your butt out of bed already!’).

6:30am-7:45am

Breakfast consists of multi-grain cheerios and a green smoothie, and I flip through my emails, check Twitter, and download a source file while I eat. Joe takes Oliver out to play frisbee and tire him out, so I feed the cats, dry my hair, do my face, and throw on some clothes.

We’re out the door by 7:10am, and as with most things in my life, nothing productive really begins until coffee has made its way to my mouth, so we stop for coffee.

By 7:30am I drop Joe off at work, and I’m at the university by 7:45am.

7:45am-6pm

I’m at the university until 3:30pm. First and foremost, I tackle coffee and write out my to-do list, and then I do several development plan and course reviews.

I brew and drink a tea while quickly uploading some revisions for a client. This brings me to 10:45am, so I take a walk around campus before heading to the gym around 11am. At the gym, I run a quick 2.51 km – I’m running a half-marathon on Sunday, and I’m trying to squeeze some very short runs and cross-training in ahead of the race. Dodgeball starts tomorrow and softball practices is on Thursday and Friday, so I don’t want to do too much more than that.

After the gym, I grab a slice of pizza from my favourite pizza place because…life’s all about balance, right?

I make my way back to the university, and populate another faculty member’s course, answer some faculty questions, and record some audio narration, taking me to 3:30pm. Life at the university is definitely a lot busier than it sounds! Having written this, it seems like I do nothing, but there never seems to be enough hours in the day.

While at the university, I monitor three different email accounts to ensure nothing pressing comes up with my clients outside of the university. Nothing major is going on today, so I feel good about being productive this evening.

At 3:30pm I pack up and leave the university and head back to pick Joe up from work.

By 5pm, we’re home. I toss supper on (hummus-crusted baked chicken and roasted sweet potato) and begin to plug away at client work. I catch up on some YouTube videos and blog-reading while I wait for supper to finish.

6pm-7pm

I deliver revisions for two courses (for one client), and plug away at another course for this client – the one I recorded audio for earlier. The course is pretty much finished, but I need to edit and synchronize the audio, which is tedious…but I love what I do, so it ain’t no biggie.

I read a low-rated review of Articulate Storyline Essentials and get discouraged for a little while. I’m really proud of having written that book, but it was really tough to pare down content to just the basics. The screenshot walkthrough style isn’t for everyone; different strokes for different folks I guess. I’m trying to focus on the positive reviews I’ve received, and not let it hold me back from working on the book I’m currently writing.

7pm-9pm

I continue working on the course and toss a load of in the dryer. I’m doing my work over a beer and the glow of the TV as I use the Blue Jays/Orioles game as background noise. I deliver the course for review, get in bed, and read to wind down. I’ll be out like a light by 10pm.

Terminology Tuesday: Scripts

May 12, 2015

I’ve been working on a lot of content scripts lately, and was surprised that I haven’t yet addressed the concept of scripting in one of my Terminology Tuesday posts, so today is the day!

Scripts in E-Learning

When it comes to writing scripts for e-learning, I’m familiar with two main approaches: content scripts, and audio/narration scripts.

Content scripts are essentially content dumps of all client-furnished materials related to the module, course, or topic you’re working on. When I write a content script, it typically includes the learning objectives, any lessons contained within the course and/or module, and any knowledge checks or assessment items located within those lessons. The goal is to have all of this content handy so that it can just be copied/pasted into the authoring tool or storyboard (depending on what milestones exist within your project). Scripting content also familiarizes you with the content, so when you get further down the wormhole of development, you have some ideas when it comes to factors such as interactivity and/or media treatment.

Audio/narration scripts are developed for the voice talent, and include elements such as screen identifier, pronunciation guide, the text requiring narration, and an audio filename. In my process, I tend not to script the audio narration until the client has signed off 100% on the textual content. Revisions to audio are often timely and expensive, so having the client review the textual content ahead of the audio scripting phase is a best practice.

Sure. Scripting is an additional step (or two) in the development process, but it really does help in the long run. It makes all of the subsequent development tasks a lot more smoother, and there is often less revision involved…or the revisions are caught in the scripting phase, leading to fewer revisions in the storyboarding and/or authoring phases. Time is money, so efficiency is always at a premium.

How do you use scripts? Are you using them primarily for content or audio scripting? What elements do you include in your scripts? Let me know in the comments!

How to Build Your E-Learning Portfolio – Part 3

May 11, 2015

This post is one in a four-part series for How to Build Your E-learning Portfolio. You can read Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here.

Part 3 is meant to address two of the most common challenges: what do I do if all of my work is proprietary or I’ve signed an air-tight non-disclosure agreement?, and I’m not creative, where can I find inspiration?

Sanitize That Sample!

Folks are always asking me what to do in situations where they are legally not allowed to share their work samples, and for those individuals, I recommend sanitizing that sample! Check out the two versions below:

Original

The original is part of a client project that I used as an example for how easily you can sanitize a work sample. Now, I will say that the conversion is not the most visually appealing, but it serves the purpose of illustrating that sanitation doesn’t need to be a huge undertaking.

Sanitized

As you can see in the example provided, sanitizing a work sample doesn’t need to be a huge undertaking. In this case, I removed the logo, changed the background, and changed the colour palette. The content for this organization is readily available online, so it’s not considered controlled goods; therefore, I was able to keep all of the existing textual content. For those of you who are restricted by branding AND textual content, I would suggest removing all branding and replace textual content with dummy text, and tada! You’ve sanitized your work sample!

Check this site out for a list of fun dummy text generators!

I came from the wonderful world of military contracts, and there is not a whole heck of a lot (aka nothing) you can share because everything is considered controlled goods. But don’t get hung up on not being able to include the super cool 3D render of an aircraft, and instead just focus on pulling apart the elements of the e-learning project (e.g. the menu structure, the iconography, the visual elements used in various screen styles). So, another suggestion for dealing with proprietary content would be to pull elements from existing work and create your own customized version of it. This is great because if you’ve been working on a project for awhile, there might be things about it that you hate (but which have been approved by a higher power), so you can change those things and really make it yours!

Finding Inspiration

Inspiration comes in many forms, and you just need to make something your muse and run with it! There are so many websites and cool apps out there now, so you can easily fall in love with a beautiful design – you might find inspiration in websites, digital magazines, video games, or templates built by others. Whatever inspires you, put your own stamp on it, build it out, and don’t forget to toss it into your portfolio!

For example, one of the E-learning Heroes Challenges (more on that in a moment), was to create our own digital magazine template. These creations were inspired by existing digital magazines and they elements they consist of, and with a little imagination, I was able to bring together my own digital magazine, The Meadows.

Click to view the full interaction.

The E-Learning Heroes Challenges

For me, the Articulate E-Learning Heroes Challenges were huge when it came to kickstarting my motivation. Half the battle is your own imagination, so the challenges were great. Each week, there would be a new challenge and a prompt for entry submissions, and each week, I would be blown away by the entries.

The E-Learning Heroes Community is a supportive environment, and comments tend to be positive or constructive in nature – I’ve made some of my closest friends here! The weekly challenges are a great way to see what your peers are capable of doing and get ideas for how you can apply similar approaches in your future projects.

My portfolio has grown considerably since I began participating in the weekly e-learning challenges, and the greatest praise I have for the weekly challenge is just that; it challenges me to think outside of the box and create interactions I may not have previously considered creating!

Answering Reader Questions #1

May 7, 2015

Over the past few weeks, I have been getting some fantastic questions from readers, and I’ll slowly be trickling through and responding to each.

The first question comes from Tristan (by the way, I love your WordPress theme – start blogging!):

Would you consider doing a follow up article on cold emailing techniques?

Cold emailing is certainly not the most fun activity, but it has landed me quite a few opportunities, especially in my early days as a freelancing Instructional Designer. First off – You need to get over yourself if you aren’t already. Take all of the fear and shame out of the idea of cold contacting prospective clients. Ain’t no shame in that! Back in the old days, businesses did this all the time, and businesses still do door-to-door, which is similar, but a lot more difficult. A cold email is how I landed my role at a university, which had I waited for a posting and applied traditionally, would have been looked over for one of the 100+ over-qualified applicants with more experience.

I had a great conversation with a friend a few months back. He was looking to break into the Technical Writing scene and wasn’t sure how to do it. I encouraged him to do some cold emailing, but he was nervous about what he would say. This happens when we’re anxious about whether we’re capable of doing the job. So my second piece of advice is to exude confidence from every fibre of your being. You enjoy what you do and you know (or are pretty darn sure) you can do what you’re saying you can, so just own it!

Now, when it comes to specific techniques, I took several approaches:

I created a canned, but modifiable, email that could broadly address any individual or organization. Once developed, I modified it based on who it was being sent to. Key elements included: introduction of me and my background, explanation of how my expertise might work for the individual/organization, link to my portfolio, attachment of my resume, and a thank you for taking the time to read the email.
I researched the heck out of the people I was cold emailing. This is important because it sets your email apart from anyone else who may be cold emailing, which in my experience, few people do this nowadays, so you really want to show off your best self because you’re already putting yourself out there. After researching, I modified my email appropriately.
I followed up! In most cases I followed up 2-4 weeks following the email.

One great thing about cold emailing is that often times, prospective clients don’t realize that they need their services, so when they’re offered (and explained clearly and without jargon), some folks will have an “Aha!” moment and realize that you’re just what they’ve been looking for to resolve a problem that has been plaguing them and/or their organization.

I will say that cold emailing may not be as fast as other means in terms of securing gigs; the university didn’t contact me until a year and a half after I emailed – how they still had my email, I don’t know, but they did, and I’ve been here ever since! However, those are the techniques that I used, and I hope that this information can help you.

Terminology Tuesday: Show Your Work

May 5, 2015

I saw some tweets awhile back about showing your work or working aloud, and the concept ties in nicely with my discussions on portfolio building, so I figured it was a good opportunity to create a greater awareness!

Show Your Work

Showing your work and working aloud are really about sharing how you got from point A to point B with an audience. Such sharing serves to enlighten your audience, and while some examples they may have previously encountered, if you continue sharing your work, your audience will undoubtedly learn something and some point.

When I started this blog, I went at it from an Instructional Design professional looking for work perspective. Blog posts were focused on clients, and had less of focus on imparting knowledge to my actual audience. Once I realized that my audience was coming primarily for the instructional design and freelance wisdom, I switched focus to cater to that audience. Initially I thought that I would see a decline in the amount of prospective clients I had, but that wasn’t the case. And, I get to share the small wealth of information I have with a group of individuals who can genuinely benefit from such information.

Ways of Showing Your Work

Now, there are so many ways for you to show your work: participating in forum discussions, creating and sharing infographics, recording screencasts, creating demos, sharing walkthroughs of how you got from point A to point B, creating day-in-the-life posts.

My explanatory posts that accompany my E-Learning Heroes Challenge entries are always very popular, and I like to think that it’s because I provide an explanation of the concept, the method I took in achieving the concept, and finally I show the result, which is typically a full demo of the interaction or free download.

Free downloads are a great way of sharing your work, because they allow users to reverse-engineer your interactions to suit their needs OR use the interaction ‘off-the-shelf’/as-is.

Screencast demos are another crowd-pleaser. These videos get a lot of views from folks looking to solve problems, so when you share your solution, it makes a small pocket of the world that much less problematic!

Of course these are just a small sampling of ways that you can show your work, so get creative!

How to Build Your E-Learning Portfolio – Part 2

May 4, 2015

This post is one in a four-part series for How to Build Your E-learning Portfolio. You can read Part 1 here.

Common Challenges

I understand that building your portfolio can be challenging. As are most things in life.

Maybe you aren’t legally allowed to share your work samples because they’re controlled goods or you’ve signed an air-tight Non-Disclosure Agreement;
Maybe you don’t have time…we’re not all Beyonce; or
Maybe you don’t know where to begin.

My goal here is to become your portfolio-building sensei and hold your hand through this entire process. There are times when you will feel overwhelmed (maybe even by looking at those three challenges), but you don’t need to feel that way. It’s okay. Everything will be okay. You just need to have a real conversation with yourself about when you want to stop hunting down every work opportunity (that costs time that no one is paying you for!) and let your portfolio do the work for you.

Challenging Yourself

Now, you may already feel challenged by those challenges impacting your lack of portfolio, but I’m asking you to challenge yourself even more!

Before taking the leap into full-time independent contractor-ship, I knew that I needed some sort of portfolio. I had been freelancing part-time for several years and was losing out on a lot of opportunities because I had nothing to show when asked “can we see your portfolio?” At the time, I had a full-time job with clients predominantly in the Defence sector, and all of my coolest work samples were classified as controlled goods; I wasn’t able to share any of my professional work, and I felt defeated.

At first I wallowed, but then I had some real-talk with myself, got serious, and created my first two portfolio pieces. The first was a tabbed interaction with hotspot pups designed to teach you how to bathe a cat. When in doubt, go with what you know. I’m a crazy cat lady who didn’t really know how to bathe a cat, but wikihow came to the rescue with some hilarious illustrations, and that simple tabbed interaction is still a hit with clients.

Portfolio Piece # 1

The second portfolio piece was inspired by many of the small business books I had read. I wanted to share brief reviews of these books, so I created a hotspot-based interaction that linked to book reviews contained within scrolling panels.

Portfolio Piece #2

Both of these portfolio pieces were very basic in terms of technological prowess, they were developed in Articulate Storyline before I had become more experienced within Storyline, and were the launching pad for my portfolio.

The moral of this story: When feeling defeated, challenge yourself to be creative!

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