E-Learning Challenge

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve shared anything e-learning challenge related, but I really enjoy using icons, so I whipped up a quick Storyline file with some themed icons.

The Challenge

This week’s challenge was to create a set of icons, buttons, or stickers to share with the e-learning heroes community.

The Method

I decided to keep the concept fairly simple, use a standard shape with a drop shadow and then add icons from The Noun Project. I’ve long been a fan of The Noun Project, and if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, click the link and go check them out!

I decided on several themes: Space, Animals, Office, Transportation, and Food, and sourced icons for all of these themes. Once sourced, I added the icon to the shape, grouped the shape and icon together for all icons, and then added a ‘show layer’ trigger to all of the buttons. Prior to publish, I added credits under the Resource tab for all icons used.

The Result

Check out a quick demo by clicking here.

Download the Storyline file to snag all of these icons by clicking here.

This week’s challenge could go so many different ways! And it’s certainly a breeding ground for the crazy that’s inside of everyone’s head. Perfect! Thanks, David! Super!

The Concept

Apparently the Bookseller has a Diagram Prize, which reveals the annual odd book names of the year. The more you know. As such, the challenge was based on the premise of the Diagram Prize in that we were tasked with coming up with cover pages for the oddest e-learning course title of the year.

The Method

First, I will say that I did censor myself. In doing that, I limited myself to some stock icons I had laying around. Gotta keep it PG, folks!

I had some really awesome flat illustrative icons that I bought from Creative Market awhile back, and so I decided to go through each of them, and if something spoke to me in the way of course titles, I added the icon and a relevant course title. I ended up with a whole bunch of prospective odd course titles, and only you can be  the judge.

I used some fly in and fade animations to make it a little less flat looking and added custom navigation buttons because the default buttons just didn’t look right. I also changed the default player colour theme because grey didn’t speak to my icons.

The Result

Click here to view the full interaction.

This week’s challenge was an easy one for me. Mostly because it didn’t require any of my currently exhausted development brains – thanks, David!

The Concept

Create a small collection of e-learning images to share with your fellow e-learning developers and course designers.

The Method

For this challenge, I sifted through the photos on my iPhone (that were incidentally taken with my iPhone), and uploaded any I thought might be particularly beneficial to e-learning developers to Google Drive. I then renamed all of the files appropriately, and shared the link.

The Result

I ended up with a pretty cute, and small gallery of images that may or may not be usable in e-learning courses – there’s nothing really compliance-y in there, but I’m sure you can find a nice nature landscape. Shockingly, there are no cats or dogs in this album.

Please feel free to download images and use them at your leisure. I would love you to leave a comment and let me know if you ended up using any of the images (and if so, what did you use them for), but it’s not a requirement. Have at ‘er!

Click here to access and/or download all images from this gallery.

Earlier this week, I asked David to challenge roulette me some challenges to work on next (because I need peer pressure), and he gave me some suggestions for the more popular challenges, and then some recommendations for ones that need a little bit of love. This challenge was one of the first challenges, and it needed a little love, so love I gave it.

The Concept

Create a flat course design template, using at least three slides, and showing how the flat design concept will move throughout the course. The slides could be static or entirely built-out interactions.

The Method

Initially, I was going to include a progress meter, but figured I would save that effort for the progress meter challenge….so I did. Instead, I used Tint UI  to create my palette for the sample slides, added some key elements (e.g. header, navigation buttons), and then changed up a few different screen styles. I made use of some free flat icons I acquired from somewhere on Creative Market or Smashing Magazine (I’m sorry…I can’t remember!), and then made final modifications to the player settings before publishing.

The Result

Click Here to see the Full Demo.

 

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)

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!”

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.

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