As many of you know, I wrote a book – Articulate Storyline Essentials. I’m at Learning Solutions Conference 2015, it’s my first time being here, and to share my excitement of both of these things, I’m giving away two copies of my book!
All you have to do is enter, and I’ll be drawing a winner over the weekend. Maybe it will be you!
This week’s term was inspired by the need to streamline and become more efficient. Hopefully it will help open your eyes to one of the many ways in which you can streamline your development process.
Slide Masters?
Slide masters are a view in Microsoft PowerPoint and Articulate Storyline (and possibly other products I’m not considering right now) that allow you to design slide layouts for use in content screens. They allow you to structure slides and add placeholders for text/images/video, etc. They became a thing for me when I began using Microsoft PowerPoint, and to be honest I didn’t really use them much until I started working in Articulate Storyline.
Once I began using slide masters in Storyline, I quickly saw how they could streamline my development process. I liken the process of creating slide masters to an argument organizations often engage in when debating the benefit of training – yeah, there’s a pretty good initial ‘cost’ of development, but the Return on Investment (ROI) will be even greater!
Another benefit – if you’re working on a project with multiple developers, designing slide masters will enhance consistency, especially when it comes to positioning of elements (e.g. title text).
I suppose this isn’t so much a definition as it is a recommendation…so go forth and master the slides!
This week’s term was inspired by an acronym-laden course I had the opportunity to recently review. Oof!
What is a Glossary?
A glossary is a list of acronyms, terms, or phrases used within a certain context. If you’re reading a book, you’ll often find a glossary of terminology in the back pages of the text. If authors feel that it’s necessary to include a glossary for their text, why shouldn’t course developers feel a similar urge?
Why would I want to add a glossary to a course?
Every industry has their phrases and acronyms, and these acronyms might mean something different to different people. Good courses will want to avoid this confusion, and a glossary is a fantastic way for doing just that. One good example of how a glossary can be helpful: the military often uses the same acronyms across divisions (e.g. Air Force/Navy/Army), yet these acronyms change meaning – not always, but often. For individuals who have trained in multiple divisions, this can be extremely confusing, and a glossary will help ensure that the terminology used within the course is clarified, as necessary.
Resources
Today I wanted to share a little video demo and I decided that I would show you how to create custom feedback layers in Articulate Storyline 2. Storyline provides you with default feedback layers, and they’re nice enough…but once you’ve seen them several times over, they get start seeming a little less than exciting. Additionally, you may have clients who want a customized look and feel to their product to set them apart from their competitors. Most people like pretty things.
Creating custom feedback layers is very easy. You essentially create the elements you want to include on a new layer, add in a continue button (which I copied from the default feedback layer in this demo), and it’s as easy as that!
If you want to check out the Storyline file I’m working in (some folks are more hands-on learners), I’ve uploaded it for you to download – Click here to download the .story file.
Check out the video demo, below, and don’t hesitate to comment if you have any questions or concerns! Also feel free to request other video demos. I’m more than happy to share them.
Custom Feedback Layers in Storyline 2 from Ashley Chiasson on Vimeo.
Content Map
Many people associate content maps with mind maps, but not me. For me, a content map is a defined structure of a course or project based on client-furnished information and overall learning objectives. I would liken it to creating an outline for an essay. Remember how your high school English teacher always made you write out (and usually submit) that damn outline for your essay? It may have been annoying, but it was important. The same way content maps are important.
It’s a lot easier to modify the structure of a course in the design phase, when you’re mapping out your content and the structure of the entire course. Here, feedback can be provided, and you won’t have to go into each and every module to make modifications. Sure. It might seem like an unnecessary step, but in the long run, it will save you time.
A content map will typically include, but is not limited to, the following elements:
Some folks might call this design documentation, but it’s really just a small portion of the design documentation.
In the Defence sector, it was not uncommon to walk into a room and see a wall full of post-it notes. This industry referred to these walls as ‘Scalars’, which provided overall scaffolding for training programs. At the smaller scale, these scalars are really just enormous content maps.
If you haven’t started using content maps, you should make this documentation part of your development process, even if it’s not a deliverable and even if it’s written on a post-it or napkin. In the end, it’s going to guide you and keep your project structured, which stands to increase the overall effectiveness of the training you’re developing.
I know some of you folks might be done hearing about this book, but I’m really proud of it! Last year I started writing Articulate Storyline Essentials, and it gets published this week (and is available for pre-order over on Packt Publishing’s website – go check it out!)
Packt Publishing has three tiers of books: Essentials, Learning (which Stephanie Harnett wrote and is a fantastic resource), and Mastering. Essentials is my first foray into book writing, and it’s been a long road to publishing, but a great learning experience. Now that Essentials has been taken care of, I’m in the middle of writing Mastering Articulate Storyline – YAY!
Articulate Storyline Essentials is meant to get you up and running with Articulate Storyline, from starting a new project to publishing that project to share with your audience. Unlike Learning and Mastering there are no activities; instead, there are many screenshots that will hold your hand through the development process and walk you through tasks step-by-step.
Mastering Articulate Storyline will be geared toward advanced topics, and I’m really excited to teach folks how to use some of the functions I don’t get to use as often as I’d like…most clients don’t need fancy JavaScript incorporated within their products…however, Storyline really is a powerful authoring tool and I want to teach people how they can push Storyline to its limits and learn how to do some really cool things!
Writing a book has been a huge learning experience and I have been extremely grateful for the fantastic team of editors I’ve been able to work with – they’ve done nearly all of the heavy lifting, and I could only thank them more if they had the power to make me focus my attention more. Sometimes you just need to sit down and write!
Again, I’m very proud of this book and I think it will serve a broad audience and compliment Packt Publishing’s other offerings within their suite of books focused on Articulate Storyline. Please go check it out, pre-order it, order it, tell all of your friends about it, and then tell me about it! I’d love to hear what you think!
I’ll be presenting at Learning Solutions 2015 later this month and if the stars align, I’m hoping to have some hard copies to sell at the expo bookstore. If the stars don’t align and you’re also attending, please don’t hesitate to stop me in passing – I’d love to meet you!
