Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Why I Use Scenes in Articulate Storyline

July 17, 2014

Alrighty – A few weeks back, I hopped on a new project that I’ve really been enjoying. The only downside was that I married into an Articulate Storyline file that was organized in such a way that it quickly became unruly.

Unruly? How?

This one particular aspect of the project involved creating a sort of library to house seminar videos. Each month, a 4-5 hour seminar would be recorded and I would use Camtasia to break the videos up into more manageable chunks. Each seminar ended up having 18-24 videos…for a duration of 6 months.

The original file quickly became unruly because I think there wasn’t as much understanding of how quickly 130+ videos/screens could get out of hand. What transpired was one scene within the Storyline file; this one scene contained all 130+ videos, which made it incredibly difficult to hunt down individual screens when making to the file later on.

I know it doesn’t look too unruly from this screenshot, but note the horizontal scrolling. Oof.

We ended up resolving to leave this file as is, after all revisions had been made, but I explained that I would be a bit more purposeful and organized in my development of the next 6 month period.

But, Ashley…How did you tame the unruliness?!

I used scenes! Scenes are basically boxes which contain slides; you can link to scenes just as you would like to slides, but it creates a more organized look and makes managing your Storyline file a biiiiit more manageable. Now, different strokes for different folks – some people might use scenes for different reasons, but for this project – the scenes were set up for ease of use from a development perspective.

The starting scene houses the Main Menu. From here, each ‘button’ trigger links to a new scene (which is a Menu for the relevant seminar). All seminar videos are housed within these new scenes. The outcome is this:

Phew! SO MUCH easier to look at, eh?! If you don’t give me a resounding ‘yes’, I might cry. In this project, we have 2 seminars (1 of which has yet to be populated). At the end of the 6 month period, there will be 7 scenes: 1 that houses the main menu, and 6 that house each of the seminar videos. I can easily locate the relevant seminar that requires revisions, and life is a lot easier.

I realize that talking about scenes may seem incredibly basic, but when you’re a first-time user of Storyline, tasked to find a way of organizing 130+ videos, you will likely end up with an story view as illustrated in the first screenshot, only to realize you’re causing a lot more heartache than necessary. Trust me. If you need to organize a vast amount of slides, USE YOUR SCENES!

Hopefully this was relatable and/or helpful to someone! If you have any other questions about using Scenes in Articulate Storyline, definitely reach out to me, and I’ll help out as best I can.

Terminology Tuesday: Flat Design

July 15, 2014

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily classify this as an e-learning term…it’s really more of a User Interface (UI) term, but because the e-learning industry works within a plethora of UIs, I thought it fitting. Also – I met a fantastic lady, Tracy Parish, who developed a presentation on Flat Design, and I really appreciated some of the visuals used within her presentation. Long story short, I’m defining flat design for you folks – hooray!

Flat Design, you say?

Contrary to what you might be thinking, flat design doesn’t equate to boring or stale design (think flat soda – not the tastiest). Instead, flat design is an aesthetic approach which highlights two dimensional, minimalist design, using sharp edges, bright colours, and flattened (2D) icons or imagery. Moving with the minimalist approach, flat design does not include text, instead letting the icons or imagery used speak for itself, creating a sleek and clean design. The flat design approach to UI is really a shining example of the Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS) principle! Why overcomplicate things?

I really dislike the functionality of Windows 8, so if you want to google their interface, do so at your leisure – I won’t be linking it here. However, their main navigation interface can be considered flat design, and it’s likely one of the more recognizable examples of flat design in practice.

Some other examples can be found on the Articulate Community’s Download section, for example: Flat Desktop Exploration Interaction by Tom Kuhlmann or Flat Design Portfolio by Paul Alders.

As for my original inspiration for this post, here is a sample from Tracy’s presentation on flat design.

Tracy Parish, Used with Permission

Resources

If you’re interested in checking out some tutorials or additional information about flat design, here are a few resources:

– Design a Flat Website Mockup in Photoshop

– Flat UI Tutorials

– How to Nail the Coveted Flat Design Look (9 Actionable Tips)

– Flat Dropdown Menu Tutorial

– Principles of Flat Design

E-Learning Challenge #42: Smartphone Video Training

July 13, 2014

This week’s e-learning challenge is all about smartphone video training. In a world where smartphones are ever-present, it seems like a really cost-effective solution to record your own training videos to meet basic training needs. Heck. I still consult YouTube for basic procedural information – have you ever had to auger your toilet? It took 29 years for me to get there, and when I did, I swiftly consulted a video tutorial.

The Concept

This challenge encouraged participants to use their smartphones to record, edit, and publish a training video. Personally, I find video training basic for procedural demonstrations, so I chose to show you the Dos and Don’ts of something I feel most folks can relate to – inserting a duvet into a duvet cover. For YEARS I hated this chore; the Internet wasn’t around when I first started dealing with duvet covers, and I always thought I had to physically insert myself into the cover to complete the task. The end result is cranky and sweaty and no fun – maybe this was my mother’s way of paying me back for the teenage years I made her deal with? Hmmm…

In any event, there is a right and wrong way of putting a duvet inside of a duvet cover, and I show you both ways!

The Method

I set my iPhone up to record video, and had my husband record the two videos, balancing the iPhone on the baby gate to our room (anyone with a herding dog and cats will understand), for stability, while I demonstrated both approaches.

Once recorded, I sought out my iMovie app…only to realize I had removed it from my computer in favour of Camtasia. Here I had to do a little bit of challenge cheating, using Camtasia instead of my smartphone app to edit and publish the video. Now, had I not removed iMovie, I would have edited in that – but hey. It’s the thought that counts!

I added in some annotations, steps, removed the original audio, and added some background music (in retrospect, there’s a song called Duvet I used to really enjoy…maybe that would have been more appropriate? Ah well!). Once completed, I published and uploaded to Vimeo.

The Result

Duvet Dos and Donts from Ashley Chiasson on Vimeo.

E-Learning Heroes Community Event: Toronto

July 10, 2014

Today I’ll be presenting at the E-Learning Heroes Community Event in Toronto, alongside some amazing folks, and I’m terrified! If you’re here, please be gentle!

I plan to share a bunch of anecdotes, but most importantly, I’ll be sharing some work done by several other E-Learning Heroes.

[Update: The presentation went well; I had a lot of fun!]

Basically, I wanted to discuss portfolio building, why an e-learning portfolio is so important, why creating a portfolio can be a challenge, and why it really doesn’t need to be! You can check out the slides below!

How to Build Your E-Learning Portfolio from Ashley_Chiasson

Here is a link to the relevant Resource Sheet – Please download this PDF and check out the links at your leisure:

RESOURCE SHEET

Terminology Tuesday: Pedagogy Vs. Andragogy

July 8, 2014

Pedagogy and andragogy may be mysterious terms to you; I know they sure were when I first became an Instructional Designer, without a background in Education. I would often see these terms crop up in Statements of Work or High-Level Design Documentation to the effect of “following principles of andragogy…” or “adhering to proven pedagogical approaches…”. I had heard of pedagogy before this time, but andragogy? That was a new one. It wasn’t until I began my Masters of Education (Post-Secondary Studies) that I fully understood those two terms.

Pedagogy and Andragogy

Pedagogy can be considered the practice of teaching, and when folks refer to ‘pedagogical approaches’, they’re talking about the methods of teaching used to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes.The term pedagogy is Greek, meaning ‘child’ and ‘lead’ – lead the child – and, in the 21st century, is referenced when specifically discussing the practice of teaching in relation to individuals who have not yet reached adulthood. While the term pedagogy is still used in reference to adults, a newer term has been delegated to the adult learner population – andragogy.

Andragogy focuses on the practice of teaching as it relates to adult learners and uses prior learning and life experiences as a basis for relating information. While perhaps not as well-used as the former term, andragogy emphasizes self-directed learning, and the adults tendency toward this approach to learning. Andragogy is a term you may often hear tossed around with greater frequency due to the growth and emphasis of the lifelong learner.

Still confused? Check these resources out:

MERLOT Pedagogy Portal

Introduction to Andragogy + Pedagogy

Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide

Andragogy (Malcolm Knowles)

3 Tips for Saving Resources on Your E-Learning Projects

July 7, 2014

I would consider it a best practice to ensure that when you cost out an e-learning project you follow your own costing strategy. Otherwise, you risk losing monetary and human resources, which leads to inefficiencies in the flow of your project, and stands to impact future projects/schedules. Here are some tips for saving resources on your e-learning projects:

1. Be specific with your contracts.

If you don’t allow room for client’s to find loopholes in your contracts, you save yourself a lot of headache in the long run. When creating your contracts, be very specific when it comes to deliverables and project requirements. If you aren’t sure of what you should include in your contracts, consult the communities you’re active in…or The Google.

2. Beware of scope creep!

Scope creep…-shudder-…all too often I’ve seen contractors fall victim to scope creep. Heck! I’ve even been guilting of allowing some of it on my own projects. Scope creep occurs when your client asks for things here or there, and being a doting contractor, you aim to please, so you give them things here and there. However, these are things not outlined in your contract (e.g. things you are not being paid for). Now, there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of scope creep – that’s why we have profit margins! But if you give an inch, sometimes you’ll have to go a mile, and that’s where you really run into problems.

Too much scope creep can be expensive! Once you agree on a contract, you should work very hard to stay within the terms of that contract. If you veer, I would recommend that you communicate to your client that X is typically something you charge for, but that you’re willing to waive the fee this once as a courtesy.

Often times scope creep can come in the form of additional review cycles; this lengthens the duration of your project and can be costly. Word to the wise – when being specific with your contracts, include a cap on review cycles and revisions to maintain efficiency.

3. Don’t be an over-achiever.

This one may seem obvious, but before drafting up a contract, be confident with your abilities to meet the contract. There’s nothing wrong with over-delivering on a client’s expectation, but there is something wrong with being unable to deliver because you’ve over-estimated your abilities.

What am I saying? Well – if you’ve just started learning to code, don’t offer to develop a client’s WooCommerce site from scratch with a two-week delivery time. It just ain’t gonna happen. You’ll be disappointed in yourself and your clients will be too. We want to nurture the relationships we have with our clients, not agitate them!

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