Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on AI image and video tools and tips, pricing elearning and ILT development, and how to grab the attention of learners. AI image and video tools and tips Here’s a Quick Course on Creating & Editing AI Illustrated Characters Tom Kuhlmann has been posting tips and what he’s learning while creating illustrated characters with Midjourney.

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Experiencing eLearning

JUNE 27, 2023

When you build branching scenarios in Storyline, one of the decisions you need to make is when to create new slides and when to create layers. In my work, I find that layers are effective for feedback in a gauntlet or constrained branching structure. For everything else, I build new slides for the consequences of each choice. Using layers might seem like it saves some development time, but it can actually create more complexity (and hassle!

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 30, 2023

What professional organizations are useful for instructional designers? This post is part of a series about instructional design careers. I’ve been asked by a number of people how to get into this field, and these posts are based on my responses to those questions. A number of job seekers and transitioning teachers have asked about professional organizations to help people gain skills and network.

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 23, 2023

How do you respond when stakeholders ask you to measure how fast learners respond to questions? How do you train for fluency when the speed and accuracy of performance truly matter? During my recent webinar on crafting better feedback for scenario-based learning, I talked about the benefits and drawbacks of using time as feedback. Measuring and assessing users on fast they respond to questions seems like good idea, right?

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Experiencing eLearning

APRIL 4, 2023

Dialogue can be tricky to write. When I teach people how to write branching scenarios, writing dialogue is one of the places people get stuck. If you’re used to writing in a more formal style, writing dialogue can feel very unfamiliar. The good news is that it’s a skill like anything else, and you can get better with practice. Two tactics you can use to improve your dialogue writing are using contractions and showing rather than telling.

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Experiencing eLearning

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

Last week, an ID asked me about my writing process. Specifically, she wanted to know how I get from content like a SME “brain dump” to a finalized storyboard that’s ready for elearning development. Prior to our call, she had reviewed a number of other resources and books. Most sources she found sort of jump from “you meet with the SME and gather information” to “you write the storyboard” without explaining the thought process.

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Experiencing eLearning

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on AI tools, games, freelancing, top learning influencers, copyright, and more. AI tools 17 AI Tools Other than ChatGPT More options for AI tools beyond ChatGPT Tome – The AI-powered storytelling format This says “storytelling,” but it’s really an AI tool for quickly creating presentations and video.

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Experiencing eLearning

DECEMBER 27, 2022

It’s that time of year when I look back to the most popular posts by views over the entire year of 2022. I’m sharing both the brand new posts I wrote this year and the evergreen posts originally written in previous years (several of which were updated this year). Top 5 new blog posts of 2022. I wrote about 30 new blog posts this year and updated about 20 older posts.

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Experiencing eLearning

NOVEMBER 22, 2022

MADE is the Media and Design in Education team for the University of Toronto. Inga Breede from this educational technology group recently interviewed me for their podcast. We talked about scenario-based learning and specifically about branching scenarios. What we discussed. We covered several topics in our 20-minute conversation. When should branching scenarios be used in learning experiences?

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Experiencing eLearning

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

A reader asked, “Should you include voice over and video in branching scenarios?” As with all things instructional design, the answer is “it depends.” Most of the time, I don’t use voice over or videos for branching scenarios because it adds a lot of complexity to the development and revision. However, there are exceptions when including voice over or interactive video works better.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on story design, visual design and usability, tools, and templates. Story design. Strategies for Humanizing Training. Rance Green summarizes the structure for instructional story design. To sum up this structure, it looks like this: STORY > REFELECT > SOLVE > FEEDBACK Tell the story first.

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Experiencing eLearning

AUGUST 16, 2022

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on accessibility and disability, outreach emails for freelancers, the importance of failure in learning, branching scenarios, and more. Accessibility and disability. Accessible color palette builder. While there are lots of tools for creating color palettes, this is the first one I have seen that so clearly notes the accessibility of different combinati

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Experiencing eLearning

AUGUST 2, 2022

For the past several years, I’ve been using Twine to write and prototype branching scenarios. The upgrade to version 2.4 included some significant changes to the Twine user interface. While I know additional changes are planned to continue to improve the application, I upgraded to Twine 2.4.1 this week to get some first impressions. Mostly, I like the changes and new features, although I’m hoping for some additional improvements in the future.

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Experiencing eLearning

JUNE 28, 2022

Last week, I attended and presented at TICE 2022 ( Training Industry Conference & Expo ). This is the first time I have attended any Training Industry event. It was also the first time the conference has been back to in person since the beginning of the pandemic. This is a local conference for me, hosted in Raleigh, NC, about 30 minutes from home.

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Experiencing eLearning

JUNE 21, 2022

In the pilot of my Build Your Branching Scenario course, several participants picked DEI topics as the focus for their branching scenarios. This makes sense, as DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is both a popular topic for a lot of training right now, and a topic that often involves nuanced conversations. However, DEI topics pose some particular challenges for training, especially for branching scenarios.

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 10, 2022

Last year, I built a simple Twine chatbot in 2 hours. It simulated a customer service chat conversation. In preparation for my demo in the TLDC eLearning Tools Summit , I revisited my chatbot and made some improvements to make it look more like a real customer service chat. This is a rules-based chatbot, where users pick from a few pre-programmed choices.

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 3, 2022

I recently had the pleasure of speaking in a webinar on instructional design careers and trends. On the panel with me was Val Quezada , ISD at Takeda Los Angeles. We answered questions about both instructional design career pathways and where instructional design may be heading in the future. Val’s background and career journey is quite different from mine, so I think it was helpful to have our different perspectives.

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Experiencing eLearning

MARCH 22, 2022

I have several upcoming events scheduled for the next few months, both online and in person. Most of my speaking engagements are related to scenarios for learning, but I also have events on workflow learning and instructional design careers scheduled. Learning Solutions Conference April 19-22. I’m speaking several times at the Learning Solutions Conference in Orlando.

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Experiencing eLearning

MARCH 8, 2022

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on insights for L&D, Twine, game design, graphic design, and quality assurance for elearning. Insights for L&D professionals. Best from the Brightest: Key Ideas and Insights for L&P Professionals – TiER1 Performance. 48 learning and performance leaders share their favorite content shared in 2021.

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Experiencing eLearning

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

When we, as instructional designers, write scripts that are easy for voice over talent to understand, they can record and edit those scripts faster. We’ll also end up with a better end product. Following a few formatting tips for voice over scripts can make our our writing clearer and easier to use. This is part 2 in my series of posts on tips for creating voice over scripts. 1: Voice Over Scripts: Writing Style Tips 2: Formatting Tips for Voice Over Scripts (current post) 3: Voice Over Sc

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Experiencing eLearning

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

Enrollment is now open for my Build Your Branching Scenario course. Over the course of this 8-week course, you will create a branching scenario from start to finish. You’ll start with a business need or performance problem to solve. I’ll guide you through each step along the way, from planning and designing through writing, developing, and refining your branching scenario.

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Experiencing eLearning

DECEMBER 21, 2021

Have you heard any of these objections to stories for learning? “Not everyone can be a storyteller.” “Stories are a waste of learners’ time.” “Stories don’t work for all kinds of training.” Maybe you’ve even raised some of these objections yourself. Here’s how I would respond to each of these objections. “Not everyone can be a storyteller.” Imagine you’re on the phone with someone explaining a bad day and everything we

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Experiencing eLearning

DECEMBER 14, 2021

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on games for learning, video captions, and how to handle “pick your brain” requests. Games for learning. “Game Making for Dummies” | HiEv Heavy Industries on Patreon. While this is about making more complex games in Twine, much of this could apply to building more complex branching scenarios and simulations too. 6 Things Video Ga

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Experiencing eLearning

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

In response to my last post on Scenarios for Boring Training Topics , Dan Epstein asked a great question : Is storytelling overkill for elearning? [Someone else in the field] says storytelling is overkill when it comes to e-learning. He proposes [very short stories] that drop learners right into the part of a story where the tension is high with only a very short introduction that sets the context.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on scenario-based learning (SBL) research, working with Twine, learning experience design (LXD), 360 images, VR resources, and elearning development time calculators. Scenario-based learning (SBL) research.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

I had the pleasure of speaking with Sandhya Lakhanpal on her new podcast, Redefine Instruction. She launched this summer with Tim Slade as her first guest. Our conversation focused on storytelling for L&D. We discussed a range of options for using storytelling and scenario-based learning. We also talked about my journey from teaching to instructional design.

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Experiencing eLearning

AUGUST 17, 2021

It has been several years since I last added my top 10 tools for learning as part of Jane Hart’s annual survey. Some of these are my personal learning tools; others are what I use to create learning for others. You can vote for your top 10 tools for learning until August 26. These tools aren’t ranked, but they are categorized based on whether I use them to create learning for others or as a tool for my own personal development.

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Experiencing eLearning

AUGUST 10, 2021

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on instructional design research and principles, productivity, video, animation, visual design, an elearning example, and my article on scenario-based learning for TD Magazine. Instructional design research and principles.

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Experiencing eLearning

JUNE 15, 2021

While I often use Twine for simple text-based prototypes of branching scenarios, it’s also possible to create a more polished look and feel. With some work on the visual design, you can use Twine to create branching scenarios for end users without migrating the content to another tool for final development. In this post, I’ll build on the basics for formatting that I explained in my previous post on the Harlowe Story Format for Twine.

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Experiencing eLearning

JUNE 8, 2021

I received a question from a classroom teacher who is hoping to make the career move to instructional design. Specifically, she wanted to know how to prepare for an interview and what instructional designer interview questions to expect. Any sage wisdom? I’m brushing up on ID jargon, but want to be as prepared as possible. What questions might they ask?

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 4, 2021

The Harlowe story format for Twine provides a number of built-in features to make it easier to enhance your stories, even if you have no experience with HTML, CSS, or Javascript. The toolbar makes these features easier to access, providing simple ways to format text, set conditional states, or manage variables. However, Harlowe has so many options that it has its own learning curve.

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Experiencing eLearning

MARCH 30, 2021

Have you ever been asked to “just tweak the PowerPoint slides” and call it elearning? How did you respond? The original PowerPoint slides. I got a call from a prospective client. She and I spoke briefly once when she was looking for a pool of instructional designers to call on for specific projects, but we haven’t worked together yet.

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Experiencing eLearning

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

One technique for creating a story-based course is using two characters who explain the content via a conversation. In this conversation-driven elearning approach, I usually use one character who acts as a coach and one character who is similar to the audience: same job role, same level of experience. In this example, the audience is new managers who don’t have much experience with coaching and mentoring.

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Experiencing eLearning

JANUARY 19, 2021

In a previous post, How to Start Creating Conversation-Driven eLearning , I described how I use conversations between two characters (a mentor and mentee or learning character) to deliver eLearning content. In this post, I’ll explain how to write and structure these conversations for eLearning. My next post in the series explains options for multimedia with conversation-driven eLearning.

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Experiencing eLearning

JANUARY 5, 2021

What is conversation-driven elearning? One strategy for creating a story for learning is delivering content with two narrators having a conversation. This differs from the traditional approach of a single narrator lecturing. Instead of one voice acting as an instructor, this approach lets learners listen in on two characters who are talking about it.

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Experiencing eLearning

DECEMBER 8, 2020

If you have several desired behaviors or skills, is it better to use one large branching scenario or break it into several smaller scenarios? One of the attendees asked that great question during my DevLearn presentation. My recommendation depends on the audience and how the skills are used. Sometimes, you want a single, large branching scenario; other times, a series of smaller scenarios may be more effective.

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Experiencing eLearning

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

When you create branching scenarios, you probably work with SMEs. They’re the ones with the expertise, after all. However, sometimes it can be a struggle to get good stories and concrete details from SMEs. You can use this list of questions to ask SMEs to gather the information you need to write branching scenarios. In one or two hours of interviewing a SME, you can gather a significant amount of important information.

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