Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

I’ve been experimenting with using ChatGPT to draft a branching scenario. Now, I have a complete prototype scenario, “The New Hire with Attitude,” written by ChatGPT. To create the scenario, I generally prompted for one decision point or passage at a time. I did some light editing of the text while creating this prototype, but I mostly left the text as is.

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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

JULY 25, 2023

How can you use AI to write scenarios for learning? I am not an expert in AI by any stretch, but I have been experimenting with ChatGPT, Bard, and other AI tools. So far, I have found these tools helpful in generating ideas, writing first drafts, and summarizing. They work better for general knowledge tasks than really specific topics unless I provide more details to them, which makes sense.

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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

JANUARY 3, 2023

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. The links in this post include resources from two online events I attended in December: IDEAL (The Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility for Learning Conference) and the Learning Guild’s online conference on Video and Visuals for Learning.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

Mark Parry recently interviewed me for his podcast, Perspectives in Parryville. We talked about branching scenarios and Choose Your Own Adventure stories. Mark is an instructional designer based in Australia. His audience is primarily teachers, so this interview connects ideas from workplace training and education. This includes some discussion of the way feedback is used in branching scenarios, since feedback is an important topic for teachers as well.

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Experiencing eLearning

AUGUST 9, 2022

I recently had a lovely conversation with Dr. Luke Hobson for his podcast. We talked about everything freelance: knowing when to start, time tracking, finding clients, creating an LLC, pricing projects, making sure clients are the right fit, and more. Listen to the podcast. You can listen to the podcast here. If the player doesn’t appear below, try listening on Luke’s website.

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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 17, 2022

Do you need a villain in a learning story? Several years ago, I attended an interesting webinar by Joe Ganci on how to use science fiction to improve eLearning. In the presentation, Joe talked about elements of storytelling common to science fiction and how to incorporate those aspects for better stories in elearning. Personifying a challenge. One of Joe’s points was that great science fiction stories have a compelling villain that allows the heroes to be heroic.

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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 15, 2022

I’ve been updating all of my posts on how to write effective voice over scripts. This review checklist summarizes all of the tips from the previous posts into a single Word document you can download and use yourself. Download the Voice Over Script Review Checklist. What’s included. Here is a summary from the checklist: Writing and Flow Read aloud the script Script flows well; no awkward or clunky sentences No overly complicated sentences Variety of sentence length No grammar errors C

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Experiencing eLearning

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

If you’re not active in L&D Twitter, you might have missed the big debate recently about whether and how research is relevant to the work of instructional designers and corporate training professionals. While some of that was likely deliberately controversial to generate traffic, the discussion raised some important points. Sometimes, we perceive a disconnect between research and practice.

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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

NOVEMBER 2, 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 Twine, storytelling, branching scenarios, freelancing costs, resources for new IDs, and recorded conference sessions. Twine. Twine in higher ed. Lesson plans – Teaching with Twine. This post includes lesson plans for teaching students how to use Twine, either in a single 50-minute session or in two days with extra time for practicing in the tool.

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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

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

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 12, 2021

I will be giving presentations on several topics in the next few months. Here’s the information on where I’m speaking in the first part of this year. This includes everything currently scheduled; more events may be added later. Streamlining Branching Scenario Planning and Design. Wednesday, January 20 at 1PM EST/12 PM CST For North Dakota ATD $15 for non ND-ATD chapter members (free for members) Register on the ND-ATD site.

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Experiencing eLearning

DECEMBER 1, 2020

I built this branching scenario prototype in Twine , a free, open source tool for creating nonlinear stories. This scenario is moderately complex, with a total of 17 pages (or passages in Twine terminology) and 8 different endings. The ideal path has 5 decisions to reach the best conclusion. Prototyping in Twine. I generally use Twine as a prototype for review and testing purposes.

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Experiencing eLearning

OCTOBER 27, 2020

Last week, I attended the first week of the Learning Guild’s DevLearn 2020 conference, also called DDX (DevLearn Digital Experience). Since we’re not able to gather in person in Las Vegas, the conference is 100% virtual. I want to reflect on my first week at DevLearn. Online Experience via Attendify. The sessions are the easiest part of a conference to replicate online.

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Experiencing eLearning

OCTOBER 20, 2020

How do you create alternate paths in branching scenarios? In a previous post, I explained how I write the ideal path for a branching scenario first. Once that is complete, I write the mistakes or errors and consequences for those choices. I use Twine to make the process of creating alternate paths easier. First, Draft One Alternate Path to Its Conclusion.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 22, 2020

After I have completed my analysis for a branching scenario , I spend time planning before I start actually writing the content. My planning includes three components: A scenario concept and summary An outline A list of mistakes. Scenario Concept and Summary. I create a summary of the scenario and the narrative. My design document includes this summary, so the client and SME approve it before I start writing.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

Many instructional designers, elearning developers, and LXDs manage multiple projects simultaneously. We’re often working on several staggered projects, especially while waiting for stakeholders to review something. Especially when I’m swamped with work, I use daily goals to help me stay on top of all of my projects. This lets me know quickly if I’m slipping behind so I can adjust.

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