AUTHORING TOOLS - EXPLORING CANVA & ARTICULATE
Dr. Winslow, EDIT 750 D1 - Spring 2024
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1) Understand industry-accepted terms used to classify eLearning production ontology.
2) Understand internet and eLearning standards relevant to product development.
3) Compare instructional design models relevant to product development workflows.
4) Differentiate and select authoring tools for specific instructional product development needs.
5) Apply knowledge of digital publishing concepts, platforms, workflows to product implementation.
VIDEO REQUIREMENTS
1. Standout Features – What features impressed you the most?
2. Publishing Options – How would learners access your module/course?
3. Example Interaction – Create or link to an example interactive resource developed with this tool.
4. Overall Impression – Would you consider using this tool to develop your module/course?Instructional Design Authoring Tools
Authoring Tools Feedback:
Re: Authoring Tools - Exploring Canvas and Articulate360
by Joseph Winslow - Monday, January 22, 2024, 9:02 AM
Jenny, first of all...love the screencast design of your review submission. It adds substantial context to each point you make in the review and I wish I had "required" this format for everyone. I'll do that in the future. Would you mind if I used this submission as a model?
That said, you make a good observation about the UI complexity in Canvas for very young learners. Canvas could learn a few things from SeeSaw, right? But of course it's tough to build a one-size UI that fits all use cases. Moving on to Articulate, I agree with all you said but I want to emphasize one point - Rise was built years after Storyline as a way to bridge nontech corporate trainers into the Articulate ecosystem. Basically a plug-and-play template system that offers super quick transition from slide based (PowerPoint) training to web page based training with embedded trackable assessments. It does a great job for what it is, but as you noted, Storyline is the flagship tool offering precise customization to specific learning needs.
Great reviews!
EDIT 750 Instructional Design Plan Assignment:
I. LEARNER PROFILE
Who are the target learners? Describe their current age/grade/ability/motivation levels and any context that would be important to know in advance (as applicable). For example, for young learners, knowing their literacy skills would be strategic to guide product design so that any text content read onscreen displays at a tempo commensurate with their abilities. For older or professional learners who might use the eLearning product as "on the job" training rather than formal classroom-based instruction, designing shorter "byte" size learning objects might be preferred to accommodate an on-demand workflow. These are just examples; the key is to identify any of the learner attributes or environmental constraints that have the potential to impact design.
II. LEARNING OUTCOMES
What will learners know or be able to do after completing this eLearning product? Identify the specific target outcomes. How will the content be organized into separate learning objects? How large will each learning object be and how will they be sequenced (linear? nonlinear?). How will you title each learning object and what will be the title of the entire module/course?
III. PRODUCTION
Describe the raw content material you will need to produce each learning object (graphics, audio, video, screencast...etc). How will you acquire and/or develop these assets and what will be your production workflow? What hardware and authoring tools will you utilize? What production problems or constraints do you anticipate?
IV. ASSESSMENT
What assessment experiences will be needed to provide interactive practice (formative assessment) opportunities? Where will you integrate these assessments in the product and how will learners receive feedback? How will you design summative assessments to determine if learning outcomes realize?
V. DEPLOYMENT
What LMS platform will you use so that learners can access your complete instructional product? Will it be designed as a standalone short course or an integrated module for an existing or future course? Will it be imported as an eBook, imported as an advanced SCORM or xAPI package, or will it be a series of HTML pages created using the default LMS tools? Provide a brief rationale.
Instructional Design Plan Feedback:
Re: Instructional Design Plan
by Joseph Winslow - Thursday, February 1, 2024, 1:14 PM
This is an exciting project Jenny! One of the many things I like about it is that it is a true Instructional Design consultation for external clients - future space engineering students. What could be cooler?! As you know, one of the biggest challenges is working with the content experts, the physics and engineering faculty who are experts in satellite design, but have very limited experience in professional quality eLearning authoring.
The mockup you've posted here does a good job walking us through the target objectives and the general design of the project. After your meeting on Monday with the content experts, there will likely be additional changes to make to the mockup. Once you've posted those, I'd like to review them here again with Michael and Ebony. Their feedback will be helpful as well.
Building an Assessment in Articulate Storyline
1) Context -The instructional design context for this formative assessment is a very brief, game-like, practice interaction with only three questions relating to the Propulsion Theory of liquid-propellant engines.
The target content: The liquid-propellant engine itself consists of a main chamber for mixing and burning the fuel and oxidizer, with the fore end occupied by fuel and oxidizer manifolds and injectors and the aft end composed of the supersonic nozzle.
The justification: The game-like "hotspot" design is to increase learner engagement and quickly relate the text to the graphic illustration to increase comprehension of what the learner read.
CCU Space Program - Online Learning Prototype Assessment Feedback
Re: Assessment
by Joseph Winslow - Monday, March 4, 2024, 10:06 AM
Nice work, Jenny! One of the coolest features of Articulate Storyline, as you know, are "states" of an element. In your example above, a common UI strategy is to make clickable elements (such as the fuel tank) change states when moused over. The state change could be color, outline, dropshadow, size (zoom)...and so on, but the purpose is to confirm the target element before the learner actually clicks it for judgement and feedback.
I wish publishing story files could be as easy as attaching, but alas it requires uploading to a directory on a web server or LMS. We'll learn more about that later in this course. For now though, your screen shots and walkthrough video are perfectly acceptable.
CCU Space Online Learning Prototype Feedback
Re: Instructional Design Plan
by Joseph Winslow - Thursday, February 1, 2024, 1:14 PM
This is an exciting project Jenny! One of the many things I like about it is that it is a true Instructional Design consultation for external clients - future space engineering students. What could be cooler?! As you know, one of the biggest challenges is working with the content experts, the physics and engineering faculty who are experts in satellite design, but have very limited experience in professional quality eLearning authoring.
The mockup you've posted here does a good job walking us through the target objectives and the general design of the project. After your meeting on Monday with the content experts, there will likely be additional changes to make to the mockup. Once you've posted those, I'd like to review them here again with Michael and Ebony. Their feedback will be helpful as well.
Stay tuned! More to come!
EDIT 750 Design & Development Instructional Design Module Final Iteration:
Dr. Winslow's assignment, "The culminating assignment in this course is the development of an eLearning product that meaningfully engages a target audience for one hour of relevant content presented as an interactive module or course containing three to five learning objects. Please note that navigation and assessment interactions are heavily weighted on the scoring rubric, along with expectations for explanatory feedback. The product should be packaged in an online container, either a course module built directly within a learning management system, a website with embedded learning objects, or a slideshow with embedded learning objects. Included with your submission should be a detailed reflection statement that describes the evolution of the product over time with specific attention paid to challenges experienced, solutions found, and future plans for improvement. Also required in your post is a change log, which is an itemized list of edits implemented since submission of the prototype."
Originally, the goal was to use the CCU Space Programonline learning prototype that we were building as the final project. As Instructional Design projects go, there were many constraints that prevented us from our original plan! Therefore, I built my final Instructional Design Module based on another project - my husband's small business. He needed an Instructional Design Module built from a brief "New Driver Training".
1st Iteration Feedback from Dr. Joe Winslow:
Jenny, this is a well-designed training course. Here are some minor tweaks to consider:
Splash Page: I have never been a fan of Rise's "splash" page that displays at the root level (index.html). The downward blinking arrow and the excess white space at the top in most templates just doesn't make the initial navigation obvious to all learners. My point being, when you launch the site for users, I'd go ahead and link directly to the next page, the real "start page."
Learning Outcomes: It's not a best design practice to have a bold header (Learning Outcomes) introduce another bold header (By the end...) because it will create conflicting SEO optimization. It's also visually confusing because the subordinate title has the same weight value, the same bold, in other words. Recommend moving it up right next to or right under Learning Outcomes so it's clearly related (Proximity Principle) but also contrasted as a subordinate text element.
Safety Scenario: Change this to plural (Scenarios) because many are presented. Also, the directions are confusing. Telling the learner to click on bottom bubble #1 only applies to the first scenario. I know you are setting up as an example, but it's not obvious initially to the learner. Recommend either pulling it out separately as an example on its own page and creating the "real" scenarios on a separate page so that it's more evident that practice time is over and now the scenarios will be tracked. OR, and I think I prefer this - just change the directions to say ...read the top bubble, then click the best response to see the outcome...(or similar). You could even put in the directions a statement that says, "For example, in the scenario below, the best answer is #1."
Video Poster: Recommend you add a poster frame to the video block. Currently the whitespace is very uninviting. Rise doesn't have a great way to do this; by default it grabs the first frame of the video, which is not optimal because you have to edit in the desired frame in the video, not in the player, like most other video sites. This has been a feature request for a long time in the forums.
Video synch: Consider adjusting the timing of the text elements with their corresponding videos/photos in the microlesson section. Think Temporal Contiguity principle... For example, when "Never drive impaired" animates, it pulls eye focus immediately. In theory that's good but the eye quickly gets pulled left to the beer glass that animates after. That difference in animation timing between two elements creates a visual sequence and a split attention effect that triggers unnecessary eye movement. A better design is to have them appear simultaneously; both elements can be scanned and processed together because they are on two different channels, visual and verbal. The timing difference is apparent on the subsequent slides.
Narration Synch: Similar to above, some tweaking of the narration timing would improve comprehension, especially if it can be heard at precisely the moment the learner reads it. Some of the slides already do this well; others could use some adjustment. My advice, if you work on #5 above, go ahead and do this as well.
Rollover Prevention Contrast Formatting: The text on this tab would benefit from some bold formatting to emphasize keyword headings and guide eye movement. Similar to what you did on the first tab.
Prevention 1 Text Length: Is it possible to condense the text displayed on the "Stay Alert and Prevent Fatigue" frame? The other frames display much less text as you navigate horizontally, fitting perfectly for desktop and tablet screen view, but it creates extra (vertical) scrolling on just the first part of that block.
Don't Cut Corners: Really like this exit element that only reveals when you scroll. It's like an "Easter Egg" that grabs your attention for one final message.
Instructional Design Module Final Iteration: Reflection Video
Reflection Feedback:
Re: Final Product
by Joseph Winslow - Tuesday, April 30, 2024, 10:48 AM
Jenny, this is an incredible final reflection. We both recognized that your project as originally intended was going to be a big chew. But the continuous adaptation that was needed did indeed force a lot of "stretch," and finally a pivot. The polish you put on the Driver Training site is very apparent and I hope you are proud of what you've built. Super exciting to hear that implementation is underway and already yield results for your husband's company.
Really appreciate the level of detail shared about your career evolution and the application of the skills learned in this program. Not surprised that you are scoring interviews with great opportunities and I can't wait to hear where you end up!
EDIT 750 Design & Development Instructional Design Module Final Iteration: