ELH

Freebie: Three (OK, Four) Interactive Tabs

March 5, 2016 Graphic Organizer, Instructional Design, Training 2 comments

When developing eLearning or online courses, it is important to remember that you are not just “information dumping” on the learner. But what happens when learners need to be presented with information that isn’t so interaction-friendly?

I recently had to create an Corporate Compliance eLearning where some of the information just NEEDED to be displayed for employees to read because it was mandatory that all employees were presented with and acknowledge that they received certain compliance regulations.

But we can still do it in a way that involves the learner being an active participant somehow…right!??! Of course.

In this particular case, I wanted to take these bits of somewhat-legalese and chunk them into more concise, digestible bits–so I got creative with interactive tabs.

Tabs are a great way to highlight key points, number steps of a process, allow a learner to choose to explore more information, and make it interactive.

I created a little freebie with a blue theme for anyone who’s interested.

Capture

Demo

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eLearning Helper Challenge: Custom Course Player

February 27, 2016 Educational Software, Instructional Design, Presentation Software No comments

Creating a custom course player can really enhance the user experience and take a course from “Oh, that looks like it was made in Articulate,” to “Wow!”

I am guilty of being the course player snob at work when I am evaluating pre-made courses that my company purchases in HR. Once I spot the player, I can usually tell which eLearning software was used to build the course. But every once in a while, they leave me stumped…and I love it!

Thinking outside the box about how to use features makes work fun. I’ve seen people use two features together in ways that I’ve never even thought about…and sometimes I’m a little embarrassed that I never thought about it!

As far as creating a player goes, I pretty much gave up in interest once we decided on a theme, logo, and style for my eLearning player at work–Marketing says we’ve got to be consistent for branding and multimedia style guidelines! I get it, and I agree.

But for today…here’s a little break from my norm.

*Updated: I was playing around trying very hard to lightbox language selection in the upper right tab, but then after much research and trying found that you cannot really put variables in a lightbox because the original slide you are on becomes paused. I am hoping for some more advanced features in Storyline 3! My Language Selection tab isn’t a 100% solution for dual languages, but it’s a start.

Culinary

Demo

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Download with updated language selection tab

 

eLearning Helper Challenge: Double Image

February 13, 2016 Presentation Software, Technology Integration 2 comments

My current job is working at a non-profit for organ and tissue donation. As you can imagine, it is an amazing place to work. There are stories of hope, stories of better health, and stories of success, but there are also stories of giving hope…to another family.

So in addition to creating educational materials for our staff, for medical professionals, and bio-implant specialists, we also have a need to create educational materials for the community.

The reason I really like these eLearning Challenges is because it gives me an opportunity to learn something new, try it out, and immediately use that knowledge.

This week’s challenge was to create an eLearning with a fancy cover slide that contains a double image. I found a topic that would allow me to practice using this technique that might inspire me later during work projects. With just the right animation/fade, this double image technique suddenly becomes filled with emotion…which is perfect for educational materials when dealing with difficult and emotional subject matter.

DoubleImage

Demo

Download– I had to use different images for this one since my original file contained stock photos through a paid service.