E-Learning Challenge

This week I missed DevLearn and was living vicariously through those in attendance via my twitter feed. But, I was finally able to relish in a secret I had been keeping for many months! On March 13, 2015, I suggested the lovely folks at Articulate have Atsumi, one of the most iconic e-learning characters, in the flesh, at their DevLearn booth. No one responded to this tweet, which I found a bit odd, but I later received a direct message vowing me to secrecy. I managed to negotiate a FaceTime in with Atsumi (thanks, Kelly!). My day was made!

This week’s e-learning challenge is an homage to the wonderful lady who made these experiences (throughout many courses and at DevLearn) possible – Atsumi! Thank you, Atsumi for being such a wonderful stock photo specimen and for taking time to engage with use E-Learning Heroes!

The Concept

The challenge this week was to share our favourite Atsumi e-learning moments and explain how we’ve used here in our courses.

I’ve only used Atsumi a handful of times in courses, mainly because I avoid using the stock character packs unless a client specifies. But when they do specify, Atsumi is my go to character! Because of the glory that are Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), I can’t show you how I’ve used Atsumi in those courses. Boo!

The Method

First, I downloaded Jeff’s Atsumoji Freebie to use as a background. Then I added a rectangular shape and applied a transparency.

Atsumi’s poses and facial expressions are near and dear to me, so I chose five of my favourite poses and added them to the slide, applying a fade animation effect.

I then added two states to each character: grey (greyscale) and selected. I added triggers to each character to change the state to grey when any other character was selected, and then a trigger to each character to change state to selected when the user clicked a particular character. Another trigger was applied to each character to show the corresponding layer when the character was clicked.

I added layers with textboxes, indicating what Atsumi was thinking (based on the pose).

Finally, I added a brief instruction so folks knew what they were supposed to do with all of the Atsumis, and adjusted the player (no menu/resources/title/changed player colour).

The Result

Click Here to view the full interaction!

Today I decided to catch up on some challenges, but I needed something light so I could ease myself back into the swing of things. So, I decided to tackle E-Learning Challenge #82 – Show Us How You Create Online Courses.

The Concept

The purpose of this challenge was to have us share how we create online courses. Because the interaction created was very brief, simply outlining the steps, this post will be a bit of an explanatory post.

The Method

For this challenge, I identified six steps I take when creating online courses, and made them look pretty in Storyline. Those 6 steps include (with some explanation):

1. Sign a Contract – This is a critical step. You’d like to think that all of your clients are going to pay you, but signing a contract is one way of ensuring this happens. And from a client perspective, this can save their butts when it comes to non-disclosure schmutz.
2. Coffee – Throughout the development process, a lot of coffee is consumed. Basically just make sure your house is stocked full of coffee (be prepared…you know snow storm? apocalypse?) or that your friendly neighbourhood cafe is open.
3. Analyze the Content – This is a necessary step, because without the content, you might find yourself down a wormhole of internet articles and publications trying to figure out how to describe the cleaning process of a Burr grinder (and who wants to do that?! Not this gal!). Analyzing content allows you to identify gaps, liaise with the client accordingly, and retrieve the necessary information to do what you’ve been contracted to do. It also gives you an idea of what you may want to do in terms of media treatment.
4. Develop/Author – Here you’ll be doing the heavy lifting of your course creation. You’ll likely be storyboarding the content or heading straight into authoring with a rapid prototyping model – this workflow will likely depend on that contract you signed up in step 1 (e.g. if the client doesn’t want you to ‘waste time’ storyboarding, they may want you to jump in with both feet and begin authoring in the chosen tool).
5. Review Cycle – Ah. The dreaded review cycle. This is a very important component when it comes to course development. The review cycle will identify any necessary changes that must be made ahead of final delivery. Before you begin contract work, you’ll want to ensure the contract speaks to review cycle limits…because no one wants to do unlimited revisions (especially if you’re working on a fixed-price contract).
6. Deliver and Invoice – A fan favourite! Delivering a course you’ve spent hours labouring over is one of the best feelings in the world. As an e-learning developer who doesn’t intend to bear children, I would liken this feeling to that of birthing a child. Mothers will slap me, but I don’t care! I applaud your hard work. Then, invoicing is just the icing on the cake, because gotta get that money, money, money…

The Result

Click here to view the full interaction.

This week I was hoping to address E-Learning Challenge #97 and do something with slider-style toggle buttons, but I ended up killing two birds with one stone and addressed E-Learning Challenge #91 while I was at it!

The Concept

E-Learning Challenge #91 – Get to Know Your E-Learning Community with 2 Truths and 1 Lie sought to have community members create playful interactions using the icebreaker game 2 truths, 1 lie. The goal was to bring us, as a community, closer together.

E-Learning Challenge #97 – Toggle, Switch, and Slide Your Way to More Creative E-Learning Buttons challenged us to show creative ways to use toggle buttons and switches in e-learning.

The Method

I thought about this challenge for awhile and decided I wanted to use sliders to respond to true/false or yes/no questions, so I thought up some questions about myself and hopped to it.

My avatar was purchased from Creative Market awhile ago for another personal project I have yet to complete, so I figured I might as well get some use out of it in the immediate future. I chose 4 poses (one for the intro, one for the questions, one for correct responses, and one for incorrect responses) and began mocking up all of the screens I would need.

I tossed in Continue buttons to navigate to the next question in the queue, and an Exit button at the end. After adding the buttons, I went back to add in all of the necessary functionality (e.g. the slider). I programmed the slider to have three slide points, with the initial point being the 2nd/middle). Then, I added in triggers so that the slide would change to the correct or incorrect feedback if the slider was positioned correctly on Yes or No (slider position 1 or 3).

The Result

Click Here to view the full interaction.

I didn’t think I was going to be able to participate in this one because there just hasn’t been enough hours in the day for me to do anything, and earlier in the week I was pining over whether I could feasibly complete my Guru entry in under 24 hours (spoiler alert – I didn’t – WAH!). Anyhow, I found some time and here we are.

The Concept

This week’s challenge was an easy one: have fun with buttons and adding creative effects – FUN! Thanks, David!

The Method

I usually keep all of my visuals (e.g. icons and free graphics I’ve paid for and/or downloaded for free along the way) on an external hard drive, which I don’t usually have on me at all times. However, I quickly found some lovely sea-themed icons, and got motivated!

For this challenge, I knew I wanted to have an icon, which when clicked or hovered over expanded the option name for that icon. In this case, I kept the names as simple descriptors of the icon, but I imagined having a cog that when clicked expanded to read “Preferences”, so you can definitely use this concept in a more practical application.

Once I chose all of my icons, I added a Hover state to each icon which consisted of a rectangle with the descriptor. I used the eyedropper tool to outline and fill the rectangle and I applied a wipe animation.

The Result

You can view the full interaction by Clicking Here.

If you’re wondering how I did this, you can download the Storyline 2 file by Clicking Here.

Alright, folks! This is my very first joint e-learning challenge, and amen! Because…time is a hot commodity. This entry satisfies the requirements for both E-Learning Challenge #74 – Using Toys for Storytelling in E-Learning and E-Learning Challenge #84 – Using Image Sliders and Photo Galleries in E-learning.

The Concept

For e-learning challenge #74, the concept was to design a short interaction using toys as your primary characters, and for e-learning challenge #84, the concept was to show and share an image slider for e-learning.

The Method

Back in March of this year, I purchased a Lego Creator set for the express purposes of completing e-learning challenge #74 in March. It’s now the end of May. I had my husband set up his camera on a tripod set to record, and first filmed myself building the lego. Then, I disassembled my water plane and used a remote for the camera so that I could capture images of each step in the water plan development.

Once all of the images and video were compiled, I tossed the video into Camtasia, removed the audio, and sped things up a whole bunch.

Now, on the day of recap for e-learning challenge #84, I felt motivated to get something together for submission…at the last minute. I thought this might be a great way of using the image slider to display the steps for building out my water plane, so I audible-d all of my other ideas for this challenge and merged #74 and 84 into one!

I chose a theme, tossed in the shapes for the steps, grouped them, added some animations, added layers for each step, and tada!

The Result

To view the full interaction Click Here.

FINALLY, David! Something I can squeeze into my regular procrastination! THANK YOU!

The Concept

This week’s challenge is to share a collection of reaction gifs for any e-learning topic we wish to discuss. Very simple concept that I feel most folks, also keen on procrastinating, can stand behind.

The Method

Staying on topic, I chose to select reaction gifs related to some of the 83 e-learning challenges we’ve had. I also chose to stick with pop culture references, in terms of television/YouTube/Internet…I guess all of these gifs (that exist) are pop culture references to some extent, so I think my point is moot. I then curated a bunch of gifs to express various reactions I’ve had to the challenges over the years, and then I sifted through the previous challenges to see which previous challenge elicited which reaction.

The Result

1. Just when you thought a terrible challenge was over.

(via Gifrific)

That’s how I felt when I saw that E-Learning Challenge #32 – Death, Taxes, and E-Learning Mistakes was coming back to haunt me in E-Learning Challenge # 33 – Fix Your E-Learning Mistakes…and how I feel each time I see one of those challenges retweeted.

2. When you see that the world will finally understand the importance of font choice.

(via OffColorTV)

This is how I felt when E-Learning Challenge #51 – Font Games and Interactions for E-Learning Designers announced.

3. When you know exactly what tool you’ll use to complete a challenge.

(via Tumblr)

When E-Learning Challenge #53 – Create Your Own E-Learning Characters with Pictograms was announced, I knew immediately that I would be using PowerPoint for this challenge (which I have yet to complete…shhh).

4. When David finally posts an ‘easy’ (re: less time-consuming) challenge.

(via Tumblr)

Much like my feeling for this challenge, and for E-Learning Challenge #39 – Education Podcasts for Online Training and E-Learning Challenge #67 – Podcast: How Do Instructional Designers Get Things Done?, I see this challenges and do a happy dance. I don’t have as many hours in the day as Beyonce, but I got this, boo!

5. When you hear about some new technology.

(via pandawhale)

When reviewing the entries for E-Learning Challenge #45 – Audio Recording Tips for E-Learning Designers, I decided to purchase a better mic for my audio setup.

6. When David posts a challenge that I know will require my brain.

(via reactiongifs)

This is how I feel the majority of the time David posts a challenge, because time is one thing in my life that is lacking. Math is not my strong suit, so I definitely felt like this when I saw E-Learning Challenge #71 – Teaching Math Concepts with E-Learning. Pythagorean, whaaaat?!

7. How some challenge titles make me feel.

(via wifflegif)

E-Learning Challenge #80 – Can You Pass an Eight-Grade Science Test? Uh…no. I can’t, and I do not wish to return to age 14…I’ll have flashbacks.

8. Whenever I see my first E-Learning Heroes Challenge entry retweeted

(via Tumblr)

Whenever David retweets my first E-Learning Heroes Challenge entry – E-Learning Challenge #25 – Instructional Design Tips that Really Pop, I get a little sentimental.

9. When I can finally participate in a challenge!

(via imgur)

Whenever I locate the elusive creature called ‘time’ and can actually participate in a challenge, I feel like doing a happy dance, like Ron Swanson. That’s how I felt when I participated, most recently, in E-Learning Challenge #78 – E-Learning Icons: Show and Share Your Favourite Styles.

10. When I realize my entry is the first submission for a challenge.

(via Tumblr)

This is how I feel today, posting my entry for E-Learning Challenge #83 – 10 Reaction Gifs for Every E-Learning Challenge.