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Why Flies Should Pay Attention to Science

April 26, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 8 Comments

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This week’s Articulate challenge is to create a science-related interaction, so I legged it to my desk and started spinning a plan.

Web Inspiration

I wanted a simple topic and found inspiration on the Everyday Mysteries/Fun Science Facts page of the Library of Congress. “How do spiders avoid getting tangled in their own webs?” seemed like a fair question, so I brainstormed from there.

The Library of Congress Has Questions

Creating The Spider Slider

Visual Design

It had to be inviting enough to get you into the topic, so I went with a good-quality image with a color scheme I liked. All colors came from the photo using Storyline’s eyedropper tool.

Instructional Design

How can I pique your interest enough to get you to check out the content? By making you the fly. Not unlike my golfer safety course, you’re going to pay more attention if you think you might get eaten. It’s Motivation 101.

With more time I would have shown you your fly self (you’re already familiar with your fly self – but I mean detailed visuals of you as an actual fly), used motion paths to zip you around, and embedded more content – but this is a quick version to give you a sense of the approach.

Storyline Design

It’s a slider done in Storyline 2. It’s one slide and each slider position reveals a slide layer. Add in some animations and transitions and it’s a quick, clean way to present information. One of many reasons to love Storyline 2’s sliders.

Will You Click Into My Demo?*

Watch your step and enjoy it right here.

*Homage to Mary Howitt’s poem The Spider and the Fly. (Here’s a nice reading of it!)

DIY E-Learning Icons (+ Free Download!)

April 12, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 8 Comments

This week’s ELH challenge is to create and share a set of icons for the e-learning community. (I’m in!)

Theme: Language Learning

Arts & Culture

List or Knowledge Check

Listening

Reading

Role Play or Discussion

Speaking

Viewing

Writing

For last week’s emoji challenge I created a language learning demo. It’s a topic near and dear to my heart, so I kept the theme going this week. These are the icons, and they align with most of the basic activities you engage in when learning a language.

Design

I created them in PowerPoint and made them simple and flat. To save time I took one of David Anderson’s challenge suggestions and pulled the basic images from The Noun Project. Credit and links back to the original images are in the file.

Colorize Your World

Snack Pack Colors

To show how you can customize them I mocked up a few color combos. They’re in the PowerPoint file, too. To color the PNG images I used Format > Color, and to add texture I used Format > Artistic Effects.

Download Them Now!

Black & White

If you’d like to download the PowerPoint file with these fully-customizable icons, you can grab it on the download page.

Feeling Neutral

Icon Feel the Blues Coming On

Texture Becomes Electra

Getting Emoji-nal: Teaching Vocabulary

April 3, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 6 Comments

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This week’s Articulate ELH Challenge is to create an interaction using emojis – or basically to use simple graphics in place of text.

The Idea: Vocabulary Practice

Anyone who has learned or taught languages knows pictures are indispensable for vocabulary practice, so I thought I’d create one with emojis.

I wanted it to be in Turkish, partly because it would be way cool and partly because I need the practice, but to save time I stuck with English.

The Design: Simple

I kept it emoji-simple. From layout to images to instructions it’s easy to figure out, easy to navigate, and easy to understand the teaching points.

It’s technically a drag-and-drop I made into a free practice activity. The feedback – even for incorrect answers – is designed to help you learn vocabulary, so I didn’t see the point of keeping score. Sometimes it’s just nice to play.

So Much More

There’s a ton more you could do with the concept, including adapting it to work on listening skills or writing skills rather than reading skills. Maybe I’ll get the chance to adapt it in other challenges down the road!

Give It A Try!

Ready to test your vocabulary skills? You can check out this emoji-nal little demo right here.

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Using Toys in E-Learning: Employee Meeting

March 22, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 16 Comments

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This week’s Articulate challenge is to use toys to help tell a story in e-learning. My toys were game, so we went for it.

It’s Just a Meeting

The Idea

The toys I grabbed for the challenge were a little funny-looking, so for contrast I put them into a perfectly serious staff meeting.

I exploited what might be their challenges if they really worked in an office, then built the learning points around that.

Over-the-Shoulder Shot

Issues in the Office

Image Production

I took still shots of each character and had to work at getting the right angles, lighting, images sizes, etc. It took a few tries, but I eventually got what I wanted. I especially like the over-the-shoulder and head-on shots.

Audio Production

Though I wrote the script, I decided to ask Dan Sweigert if he’d do the voices. Lucky for me, he did – and I recorded it directly into Storyline.

The Benefit of Using Toys

Even in a quick demo like this it’s easy to see that using toys to mimic real-life touchy situations makes it easier to address them, and adding humor never seems to hurt.

Time to Play!

Ready to see how this meeting went? You can attend it right here.

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Keeping It Odd

March 14, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 12 Comments

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This week’s challenge is to make up an odd-sounding course title, then design the cover slide. I got inspired by some of the fauna here in South Carolina and went with it.

Our Gators

I love that we get to share this area with the local alligators. Sometimes on our walks we’ll stumble a bit too close to a guy and calmly give him a wide berth, but we all get along famously.

Our Golfers

Since golfers are also rife around here, especially near gator ponds, I considered what an e-learning course about alligator safety for those guys might look like.

The E-Learning Course

Teaching the golfer how to stay safe by showing him the alligator’s perspective seemed like an engrossing way to go. Especially if you realize, from screen one, that you may be dinner. Of course the goal would be to keep both parties safe.

Visual Design

I purchased my well-dressed golfer, but made the alligator out of PowerPoint shapes. For fonts, I liked the chunkiness of Clarendon against the fancy-restaurant deliciousness of Edwardian Script. All in all, I’m pretty happy with it.

Check it out!

Grab your golf clubs and enjoy this tantalizing title slide right here.