Jackie Van Nice

E-Learning Goodness by Jackie Van Nice

E-Learning Design

“Please Refresh Us!” Love, Your Online E-Learning Demos

By Leave a Comment

The Heartbreak of Demo Neglect

I began participating in Articulate’s delightfully addictive E-Learning Challenges more than 8 years ago, and I’ve designed and developed 130+ entries and written posts about each one.

Some entries took the form of images, podcasts, videos, interviews, or Rise interactions – but 100+ of them were in Storyline, and I published and uploaded those demos to my site so you could take them for a spin. Because fun!

Fickle, Fickle Technology

But development tools, online security protocols, web browsers, and mobile devices are constantly changing and unless you’re regularly republishing your e-learning examples, users are probably staring at blank or spinning screens of nothingness where all the good stuff used to be. (Sorry ’bout that.)

My ELH Challenge Entry This Week: No Progress Yet

You Don’t Have Time for This Nonsense

I don’t have to tell you why few (if any) of us regularly republish our examples. It’s a task that gets back-burnered as you get swept into exhilarating new interests and projects.

Why would I voluntarily halt all of that life-giving exhilaration to dig up 100+ dusty source files, upgrade each one to the latest version of Storyline, apply the most current mobile-friendly player, test them, make a variety of adjustments, publish them, and try to figure out how to re-upload the published files in a by-now-completely-altered back-end environment? Wouldn’t it make more sense to see what’s happening on Catfish UK?

The Turning Point: Love Triumphs Over Shadiness

What finally got my attention was a hosting company that had thoroughly lost the plot. It was not looking good, and as the weeks dragged on I prepared for a full salvage operation by going through every post and page on my site to document details in case I needed to reconstruct it from scratch.

The completely unexpected result was that I fell in love with the work all over again. In the initial rush of creating it I never stopped to fully appreciate it. Now I couldn’t be prouder of it or happier that I did it. Even the old cringey stuff. It was time to show it some love.

This Week’s ELH Challenge

This week’s challenge is to design a progress indicator to show learner status. I used this experience to create my entry, using lots of blank demo screens as my progress indicator starting point. You can check it out right here.

Select Image to See My ELH Challenge Entry

More to Come, DON*

I’ve learned a few things while revisiting and updating 100+ samples of my work in Storyline. I’ll be sharing more of that new-found wisdom soon, unless Netflix suddenly puts out a new season of Murderville.

*Depending on Netflix

When Postcards Need Glossaries

By 2 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate ELH Challenge is to create an example of a glossary for e-learning. I’ve been meaning to make one lately, so this was a good chance to play.

The Idea

People have done some wonderfully creative interactions for this challenge that you can check out here. In my case I wanted to create an über-practical glossary that was incredibly quick to build, easy to maintain, and that could handle a lot of entries. Oh, and my example helps decode German idioms used by someone visiting Bali.

The Design

Back of the Postcard

Back of the Postcard

The Postcard

The postcard itself is straightforward: A front-of-postcard screen and a back-of-postcard screen. On the back of the postcard there’s an instruction to hover over/select underlined text to see its meaning. When you do, a lightboxed glossary slide is displayed.

The Glossary

Inserted Table Lightboxed Glossary

Inserted Table Lightboxed Glossary

The glossary itself is built using an inserted Storyline 360 table; a feature I love. In this example I only have a few glossary entries, but for more you could either place a longer table into a scrolling panel, or you could use multiple glossary screens with lightbox navigation to jump between them.

The Result

Ready to see which German idioms cause vacation confusion? See the glossary that straightens it all out in this air mail special delivery interaction!

Simple (and Free!) Animated Timer in Storyline 360

By 2 Comments

Select Image to Launch the Animated Timer Demo

Select Image to Launch the Animated Timer Demo

I recently made a game for the Escape the Room ELH Challenge and made a simple animated timer to regulate it. I’m sharing it in the Animated Timer ELH Challenge, too, which is a good place to check out if you’re looking for timer ideas.

It would have saved me a ton of time if I could have started with a ready-made timer like this, so I thought I’d share in case it might help you, too.

Tips to Help You Customize It

  1. Download it: Grab it on its download page.
  2. Unlock the shapes on the timeline: I’ve locked them so they stay aligned, but you can expand the grouped images and unlock them.
  3. Adjust the timing as needed: My need was for a 2-minute timer, so I used a yellow animated circle to represent minute 1 and a red one to represent minute 2. You could use the circles to represent other time periods (e.g. – maybe for a 3-minute timer you would add an orange circle between the yellow and the red to show progress) or whatever fits your needs.

See it in Action!

If you’d like to see how I used this timer in my game interaction, you can see that post and demo here or select the image below.

The Game I Made Using This Timer

The Game I Made Using This Timer

Lightboxing Some Art

By 2 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate ELH challenge is to show an example of how lightboxes can be used in e-learning.

An Arty Lightboxed Drag-and-Drop Question

An Arty Lightboxed Drag-and-Drop Question

The Idea

When I think of lightboxes I think of art projects, so art seemed like a good theme.

I also wanted to show how they could be used in e-learning as exporable objects to play with something you may already know about, or to explore something new. (Exploring is always good.)

The Design

I wanted the interaction to be grounded in an art museum, and I pulled the museum image from Storyline 360’s content library. I designed the color palette and general look and feel based on that image.

Feedback in Case of a Chagall and Rothko Mix-Up

Feedback in Case of Any Chagall/Rothko Mix-Ups

The Lightboxes

Each lightbox is a drag-and-drop interaction set to allow you to try again as many times as you’d like. In these examples there are only two possible answers, but I think there’s something about that simplicity that makes them kind of fun to play with. I also included hints on the try again screen, and feedback and a bit more information on the success screen.

Because a lightbox in Storyline only displays at 80% of a regular slide’s size, you’ll want to be sure that your images and text are large enough to be viewed at that reduced size when using them in projects. It also helps to take full advantage of your screen real estate when laying out screen objects.

The Result

It’s simple, but kind of fun! Ready to play with some arty lightboxes? Try them out right here!