Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

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E-Learning Challenge #41 – Low-Tech, High-Speed Course Design

Tonight I was sifting through the previous ELH challenges, and decided to take my artistic abilities to the next level (in my opinion), so I settled in for a doozy of a challenge!

The Concept

Get back to basics and create an emergency response course using pen and paper. Now, I’ll humour David here, but if I was presented with this ‘interaction’ when I was in school, I would have dropped out immediately. This task required us to take a news story or disaster event and help learners navigate the event.

The Method

Inspired by the giant winter storm that is making its way up the eastern seaboard this evening, I was reminded of White Juan. White Juan was a giant snowstorm that brought our city to a standstill mere months after Hurricane Juan decimated much of our coastal areas. There was so much snow that folks had to wait for their neighbours to somehow magically get out of their homes to shovel them (the other un-freed neighbours) out. I believe my folks were stuck inside for two or three days because they couldn’t open their windows/doors. Bananas, right?

I grabbed my mousepad (which is also a giant post-it note/memo pad), ripped off a couple of sheets and got to work. I added a header and a prompt (which you can’t read very well in the example, but I’ll transcribe – don’t worry), drew an emergency kit (or a child’s backpack – same difference), and went to work drawing items that might be in the kit.

All of the items were drawn on itty bitty post it notes, which I then affixed to the main content ‘slide’. I imagined a drag and drop interaction where users would drag the items to the emergency kit.

Taking a second sheet of memo pad, I re-drew the emergency kit, added the header and prompt, did some research over at the Red Cross’ website and added the correct responses (post-it notes), and then added a little note.

I then took photos, with my iPhone, of both ‘slides’. Ta-da!

The Result

Here is an image of the main content slide. The transcription is as follows: 

Header: “SNOWSTORM 2015”

Prompt: “CHOOSE ITEMS TO FILL YOUR EMERGENCY KIT! (CHOOSE WISELY)

ELH_Challenge_41_1

Here is the correct feedback slide. The transcript is as follows:

Header: “SNOWSTORM 2015”

Prompt: “IF YOU CHOSE THE FOLLOWING ITEMS, YOU CHOSE WISELY (ACCORDING TO THE RED CROSS)”

Note: “PLEASE NOTE: WHILE THEY MAY SEEM IMPORTANT, THE FOLLOWING ITEMS ARE CONSIDERED NON-ESSENTIAL IN THE EVENT OF A SNOWSTORM (ACCORDING TO THE RED CROSS): CAKE, NETFLIX, ALCOHOL, BEAGLE, SNOWMEN. STAY SAFE!”

ELH_Challenge_41_2

Disclaimer: If we get nearly as much of a blizzard as Environment Canada is calling for, I will be sitting on my couch, with my beagle, watching Netflix (providing the power does not go out), eating cake, and drinking wine…I may have a burst of energy, and will use that to build a snowman.

3 Ways to Improve Your Workflow

Any small business owner (and I would hazard to say employee) wants to be efficient in what they do; dragging tasks out is no fun, and our to do lists will thank us if we take steps to improve our workflow. Here are three suggestions:

1. Streamline

Some people call this using shortcuts or cutting corners, and that’s not right. Your goal is to streamline your workflow and make it more efficient. Not to cut out key steps. In any event, you can easily streamline your workflow by using to do list applications (or writing them out on paper), prioritizing these items, and focusing on the task at hand. If you work within software for much of your day, learn the shortkeys and use them whenever you’re using the product – trust me, it will save you so much time. Those seconds add up! Use a project management tool – believe me, it will save you SO MUCH administrative time (because I know I don’t like being stuck in the administrative trenches).

2. Remove Distractions

This might seem obvious, but a lot of people can take a quick break that turns into a 45 minute rabbity hole into the Internet. Pause your inbox, close all irrelevant (to work) browser windows, or even turn off your wifi access! You’d be surprised how effective removing distractions can help when trying to focus and cross items off your to do list. If you have a beagle, don’t schedule important conference calls on garbage day. If you have a beagle, maybe you just need to work at a cafe. Regardless of your beagle status, you should ensure you have a dedicated and quiet workspace.

3. Create a Calm Workspace

I’m guilty of not doing this 100% of the time, but I do find myself to be a lot more productive when I’m feeling relaxed. Ensure you start your day with a clean and (somewhat) organized workspace. At home, I like to brew a pot of herbal tea, use dim lighting (I have a table lamp with 40 watt bulb), and light a scented candle. I tend to vary between Mellow playlists on Songza and ambient sounds as background noise, but I do whatever I can to just zone out and feel inner calm. You already have deadlines, your workspace doesn’t need to be a stressor!

E-Learning Challenge #67 – How Do Instructional Designers Work?

Alright folks – I’m riding on a high over here because my VERY FIRST BOOK (!!!!) just became available for pre-order (GET ON THAT!) – EEEE! You’ll have to be patient with me and not judget the abundance of exclamation points. Some buzz on Twitter had me worried for this challenge, but then when I found out it was a podcast challenge, I WAS SO EXCITED!!! I love the podcast challenges. It makes me feel so much closer to my friends (aka the e-learning community).

The Challenge

This week’s challenge was to record answers to the following questions:

  1. What’s your job title? What title do you think really captures your roles and responsibilities?
  2. What software tools do you love?
  3. What’s your workspace setup like?
  4. What is your creative or design philosophy?
  5. How do you stay fresh and keep building your skills?
  6. How do you avoid burnout?
  7. How do you save time and boost your efficiency day-to-day?
  8. How do you manage your workflow? Do you have a project management tool you love?
  9. What books or blogs have been influential to you?
  10. What kinds of tasks do you love to do? What gets you excited to sit down at your desk?
  11. What do you like to do least? How do you keep yourself motivated to do that stuff?

The Method

I wrote out all of my responses in notepad because I’m not great at winging it, and then I recorded and edited each response in Camtasia, exported, and uploaded to Sound Cloud – EASY PEASY!

The Result

E-Learning Challenge #66 – Creative Invoice Designs for Course Designers

This week’s challenge entry is probably my least imaginative, but I’m not feeling 100% and I gave it a go anyhow. For 2015, I’ve resolved to try to be less hard on myself.

The Concept

This week we were tasked with sharing a creative example of an invoice or invoice template. Invoices – exciting! No, but really…if you’re doing any sort of independent work, you need to have some sort of invoice or else you run the risk of not getting paid (or having a harder time getting your ducks in a row come tax time).

The Method

I developed two examples, one of which only involved modifying the information on my current invoice template for my own small business. The other was modified based on a word invoice template I found awhile back. Neither are particularly wow-ing, but they get the job done, and I can tell you first-hand that my first example gets me paid. Effective? I’d say so!

Both invoices were created in Microsoft Word and then saved as a PDF format.

The Result

Screen Shot 2015-01-21 at 8.31.47 AM

View the Full PDF Here.

Screen Shot 2015-01-21 at 10.18.46 AM

View the Full PDF Here.

Terminology Tuesday: 45/15 Rule

I am no stranger to procrastination…by any stretch. So much so, that I tend to factor procrastination into my workflow and feel as though I produce better work under pressure…probably not true, but I’ll let myself believe it. Whatever you choose to believe, you should make an effort (like I do) to be more productive. That’s why I subscribe to the 45/15 rule!

The 45/15 Rule

The 45/15 rule is a great model for productive workflow (in my opinion) because it encourages you to break up each hour into 45 minutes of productive work and 15 minutes of procrastination, distraction, or time spent otherwise not working. For me, this rule works really well because I see it as a challenge – how many pages can I write in 45 minutes? How many emails can I respond to in 45 minutes? How much of a course can I author in 45 minutes? And then, I reward myself by 1 – ticking items off my to do list and 2 – watching cat videos or surfing social media for 15 minutes!

This rule helps me channel my productivity while still allowing me to indulge in the procrastination I’ve grown to love and appreciate (and whom I have nurtured for many years).

If it helps, you can use an alarm – I did this at first. However, I tend to find the actual alarm sound to be jarring, so I’ve opted to calculate my hour by using even hours on my clock.

Resources

A Little Doodle Love

So, a few months back (gosh…it’s been many months, actually), I purchased The Doodle Revolution on recommendation from many e-learning professionals. I have yet to finish it, but largely because I did a lot of the reading, but not as much of the exercises. Anyhow, the book is amazingly well-written and is not about making you good at drawing. It’s about making you think differently and communicate in a more visual manner. It’s awesome!

However, as I previously mentioned, it’s been slow-going because I’ve been wanting to do the exercises and haven’t been particularly motivated to do so…that is until I discovered Pencil and Paper by Fifty-Three. Pencil is a stylus type of tool, and is meant to work with the app Paper (free). Last night my Pencil arrived and I promptly had my husband download the app on his iPad. I asked him what he wanted me to draw, and I ended up drawing this cat as my very first doodle:

Drawing_1

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I cannot quite explain (except in all-caps) just how friggin’ fun it was to make that doodle. I didn’t need to be good at drawing. All of the tools I needed and colours I needed were there. I didn’t need a desk full of implements and other crap to choose from. I just needed to DO IT. My favourite feature is the watercolour option; it makes all of my artistic endeavours seem that much more artistic. Now my motivation for completing the exercises in The Doodle Revolution have been reinvigorated, and I’m excited to get moving!

In any event…I just wanted to share these products by Fifty-Three with you (they aren’t paying me to tell you how awesome they are), because my husband and I honestly had the most fun in recent memory sitting beside each other and making silly drawings (his is less silly and more realistic, but it was so much fun)! Definitely check it out; I’ve added these items to my Resources page.