Freelancing

Show Your Work: Creating Portfolio Images to Share

August 10, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 4 Comments

This week’s Articulate challenge is about creating images to showcase your work. After going through the process of producing new work it’s tempting to just move on, but creating shareable images helps build a more visual portfolio and show your peers what you’ve been up to, too.

Main Portfolio Image

First, David Anderson wanted us to create a main portfolio image he could use to link from the challenge to our online portfolios.

Since my website pretty much says it all (who I am, what I do, and what my work looks like), I adapted the basic layout of my site and captures of my work into an image David could use. I also like the idea that anyone clicking on the image will land on exactly what they’d expect to see. Truth in advertising.

Portfolio Image for the Challenge: Look familiar?

Use this free template! I shared the template I used to create this image with another community member, and they found it so useful I thought I’d offer it as a free download. It’s in PowerPoint, and you’re welcome to grab it right here.

Images for Social Media

The next step was to create the same type of image to share on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Since each handles images differently, the challenge is to try to get your image to display as you’d like it to. The images I shared on those sites are below.

This will be an ongoing challenge. Between the ever-changing demos I create and the ever-changing sites to share them on, this can only be a work in progress. But the value of figuring it out and doing it well is enormous. Thanks for the challenge, David!

Portfolio Image Posted to Facebook

Portfolio Image Posted to Twitter

Portfolio Image I Pinned on Pinterest

How I Record Audio for E-Learning

August 1, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 22 Comments

This week’s Articulate challenge is to share how you create audio for your e-learning projects. Here are David Anderson’s questions along with my answers.

1. Tell us about your recording setup.

I use an Audio-Technica AT2020 desktop USB mic (pictured here on my desk). I either record directly into Storyline or Audacity – just depends on what I need. I used to do elaborate things to try to deaden the room or block out noise, but I stopped all of that and now I record pretty much as you see here, including the low light. I like a nice, calm atmosphere with as few lawnmowers and barking dogs as possible.

2. Show us your audio setup.

See that photo? That’s my audio setup. It’s my USB mic plugged directly into my PC or iMac. This is basically the setup I used to record this podcast; though in that case I was recording into Garage Band rather than Audacity.

3. Share your three favorite audio recording tips.

A. PRE-READ:

One of the first things they teach you in radio is to pre-read your copy. I started in public radio, so I learned this reading PSAs and other announcements. The key is not to read silently; you have to read aloud. Seems silly, right? Fact is, whenever I skip this step I end up doing more takes and more editing. If you invest your time up front by reading the script aloud, and with fluidity, before you record that one piece of it – you’ll save time on the back end by eliminating multiple takes and fixes.

B. LISTEN TO EVERY TAKE BEFORE YOU MOVE ON:

Normally I’m recording for individual screens in Storyline. As tempting as it is to say “Got it!” and move on to the next slide, I always stop and listen very carefully and at full volume to the take I just did. That may be the first time you hear the plane or the sneeze or the pencil drop that snuck in while you were focusing on your script.

C. CARE:

That’s it. Just care about what you’re saying. Anyone can read a line of text, but that’s not going to lead to a compelling voiceover any more than slapping images and text into an e-learning development tool is going to lead to a compelling learning experience. Understand what you’re saying and why you’re saying it, think about who you’re talking to, and put your best energy, focus, and intention into it. It matters, and it shines through in the end result.

My Scenic Route to E-Learning Design (+ Free Storyline Template!)

July 27, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 12 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate challenge was to create a virtual tour. Given how varied my journey to e-learning has been, I thought it might make for an interesting tour.

Select Image to Launch Inspiration Demo

Design Inspiration

I liked one of David Anderson’s inspiration examples enough to create something similar. It’s a New York Times virtual wine tour of Italy. I appreciated how quick and compact it was while still providing enough information to make for a good tour.

Content

I capped it at 30 jobs, but there were more. At times I worked up to 5 simultaneous part-time jobs in college. Multiply that by a whole lot of quarters and semesters, and we could have been here all day.

Ducks Are Involved

See the Tour!

If you’d like the tour, take it here.

Grab the Free Template!

Download the Free Storyline Template!

This piece was easier than most to make into a template to give away, so that’s what I did. Grab it on the download page, then have fun making your own tour!

Podcast: A One-Sided E-Learning Interview

June 24, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 13 Comments

Image Credit: David Anderson

This week, Articulate’s intrepid David Anderson came up with yet another remarkable e-learning challenge: Create your own podcast. He supplied the questions and we got to make it happen. Here’s mine, and I explain how I did it at the end of this post. If you’d rather autoplay all tracks (rather than click on each one) you can listen to them here.

1. Tell us a little about yourself and the types of e-learning projects you most enjoy.

2. How did you become an e-learning or instructional designer?

3. What are the essentials of good e-learning design?

4. Tell me about your most successful e-learning project.

5. What are the most important criteria in evaluating e-learning?

6. What are some common mistakes new course designers make and how can they avoid them?

7. How is designing mobile learning different than designing for the desktop?

8. How do you evaluate whether your course was effective?

9. How do you keep up your skills and stay current in the industry?

10. What is the future of e-learning?

The Process

There are countless ways to do this, but this is what I did:

Jotted down my first response to each question, treating it as though someone had asked me in conversation. The upside is it’s how I’d really answer a first question. The downside is there are no normal conversational follow-up questions, so I don’t get into any detail.
Used my trusty Audio-Technica AT2020 desktop USB mic to record in Garage Band on iMac (just for fun), referring to my jotted-down answers as a guide. How many takes? Probably a couple for each one. If you’d like to see a photo of my setup, along with some of my favorite recording tips, they’re right here.
Exported individual tracks as mp3s, then imported them into Audacity on PC to edit. Used the noise removal effect to get rid of background hum.
Headed over to SoundCloud where I started a free account.and uploaded the mp3s. Thanks to Tim Slade for thinking of SoundCloud!
Headed here to my WordPress blog to write this up. To embed these tracks I referred to SoundCloud’s instructions which worked quite nicely; though rather than doing a link-type post I simply pasted each of the track links into the body of a standard post.

Update!

David has collected everyone’s podcasts in one place for easy browsing and enjoying. Well worth a listen. (Great job, David!)

Can You Crowdsource Your Mentors?

June 7, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 8 Comments

I’ve always loved nudging people to figure out their goals and dreams; encouraging them to make it all happen. I’m sure you’ve done the same. There’s nothing more exhilarating than seeing someone connect with that spark that ignites their work and life. So when I recently started getting requests to mentor people who have seen my work here, you can imagine how excited and humbled I was that they would ask.

What Makes A Good Mentor?

The good news for me is that this has been a fantastic year. By looking up from my desk long enough to reach out to share and connect with others, all sorts of career possibilities suddenly exploded for me. But all of that good stuff also means my free time has sort of evaporated. Given that, I’m trying to figure out what sort of help I’d be able to offer, and it got me thinking about what and how I learned from my own mentor.

My Mentor

When I started as a freelance instructional designer my first client ended up becoming a fantastic mentor just by being who she is. There was no official mentoring relationship – I just took it all in. This is how she helped me:

Reviews & Critiques: Every time she reviewed my work and made it clear that, for example, the placement of every element was important down to the very last pixel – I took it in and that became my standard.
Observation: From project management to design work to professional involvement, just by observing how she operated, I learned.
Encouragement & Support: She thought I was talented, but more than that she told me I was and always made sure I was paid as much as possible. She didn’t have to do either of those things, but her generosity and support made me work even harder to do the best work I possibly could.

Individual vs. Crowdsourced Mentoring

A lot of the things I got from her individually can be obtained in professional communities online now. It’s not identical, but I’ve grown enormously in the past few years by taking advantage of the knowledge, advice, and opportunities for growth provided by the generous members of the Articulate community. Need a review or critique? Want to observe how others work and what they do? Need encouragement, suggestions, or advice? Want quick and effective ways to build your skills and portfolio? It’s all there in the community, and those are the same things I got from my own mentor.

Can you really crowdsource something like mentoring? Check out the thoughts of Danielle Russell. Her “crowd” is her network of connections – and she’s doing what we’re all doing: Getting involved, gathering information, making decisions, and taking action to build her career.

What Are You Looking For In A Mentor?

If you were looking for an individual e-learning mentor, what would be most helpful and what would that relationship look like? Could turning to an involved professional community for support meet any of those same needs? What do you think?