REQ: Javascript Date Variable Help. - Articulate Storyline Discussions - E-Learning Heroes
Notes on Javascript date formatting and how to add 365 days to a date (e.g., for an expiration date on a training certificate)
Blog posts
Storyline 360 - Generating a PDF Certificate using JavaScript - Articulate Storyline Discussions - E-Learning Heroes
Directions and sample file for creating a PDF certificate
Articulate Storyline to Create a Customized PDF on the Fly? – Rabbitoreg (Zsolt Olah)
How to create a PDF from Storyline variables using the PDFMake Javascript library
Share everything you know - Chris Lema
Chris Lema writes about the benefits of blogging and sharing your knowledge generously. While this isn't explicitly about training or learning, it is a form of working out loud or showing your work. And while this is about blogging, the same concepts apply to any other method of sharing: videos, podcasts, etc.
VEED
This browser-based video editing tool is aimed at marketers for creating quick social media videos. They have a free account level which includes a watermark. This might be helpful to students or others looking for a way to create a quick sample for their portfolio without spending money.
VISIWIG | Visuals for busy designers
Online tool for creating quick patterns, textures, and icons. The images created with Visiwig are free for personal and commercial use.
What is instructional design? Examples and online courses - Business Insider
Basic overview of ID for those interested in the field. This article highlights a few online programs for learning about instructional design, plus 3 bloggers to read: Connie Malamed, Cathy Moore, and me.
How To Remember Anything Forever-ish
An interactive comic explaining the Leitner method of spaced repetition to learn and remember information.
The State and Future of Learning & Development in 2021: See What the Experts Think!
Jeffrey Dalto collected responses from a number of L&D professionals for insights on how COVID-19 has affected L&D and how this affects the future trends for the field.
We’d like to thank all of the contributors for sharing their time, knowledge, and insight. They include Connie Malamed, Arun Pradhan, Patti Shank, Cara North, Clark Quinn, Stella Lee, Zsolt Olah, Julie Dirksen, Mike Taylor, Jacinta Penn, Guy Wallace, Emily Wood, Kassy Laborie, Alexander Salas, Michelle Ockers, Shannon Tipton, Christy Tucker, Linda Berberich, and Richard (Dick) Clark.
How Long Does It Take to Develop Training? New Question, New Answers.
Updated ATD research on the time to develop training
Does anyone design for an hour of training? Not really. The chart below shows how the 264 respondents identified which types of training products they develop and the minimum, maximum, and average times it took to create each.
How to Use RSS Feeds
Helen Blunden explains how to use RSS to subscribe to specific feeds, including filtering for specific topics on a blog or subscribing to a YouTube channel. While following folks on social media can be a good way to discover new things and to interact with others, RSS gives you control and customization over what you see. If you feel like there's too much noise on social media and want a way to focus on reading just what you're interested in, RSS helps you do that.
If you’re relying on social networks to serve you up the content you want to read – you’re not in control.
To many people, I’m may be a bit of an old fashioned kook because I still use them religiously but the truth is, I wouldn’t be finding great content and sharing it to you if I was just relying on my social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn to serve this content up to me. After all, my networks are reading similar content, retweeting and sharing the same stuff. An RSS Reader allows me to control what is coming to me but also is flexible enough for me to add to or delete feeds as my interests change.
Scenario Writing: Top 5 Pitfalls | Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
Common mistakes and pitfalls for writing scenario-based learning.
- Not tying the story to the learning objectives.
- Getting preachy.
- Avoiding the gray areas.
- Writing robotic speech.
- Disguising info dumps as conversations.
Why Does a Design Look Good?
While these examples are all websites, the design principles apply to elearning too.
<strong>Summary:</strong> Visually aesthetic designs use consistent typography, establish a clear hierarchy, utilize a refined color palette, and align to a grid.
Plagiarized article
Stolen from my blog post on branching scenario layouts
How to Price Your Online Course (Complete Guide to Course Pricing)
Lengthy guide about considerations for pricing online courses from Thinkific. This is aimed at experts who are selling courses, but that also applies to many of us in the L&D field who are branching out into selling course products ourselves.
The 57 Best Project Management Software in 2020
An extensive list of project management software options, many of which have a free tier. Note that the list was compiled by nTask, who conveniently put their own tool on the top of the list. The feature comparisons and pricing summaries are still useful though.
Identify your superpower and learn to leverage it - Chris Lema
What are the things you're good at, but take other people a lot of time and effort? What do people compliment you on, but you downplay it because it feels so easy to you? What can you do well that surprises other people? Chris Lema shares questions to reflect on your skills to identify your special strengths. This isn't about instructional design, but it seems relevant to our field where there's a wide range of skills under the general umbrella. Within that broad scope of L&D, what's your superpower? This is also another way to think about identifying a niche for freelancers and consulting businesses.
How to Use Plain Language to Improve Learning Outcomes | Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
We all probably know we should use easier to understand language in instructional writing, but this article provides more specifics on how to actually do that. The before and after writing example shows what a significant difference it can make.
Pose - Easy Character Guidelines by Gal Shir
App for creating poses for characters. These are just outlines, which you'd have to illustrate yourself in another app. Kevin Thorn demonstrated this as a way to create custom characters for scenarios, which you can pose in exactly the way you need. This is a browser-based app, currently $19.
DDX - 1023 - Streamlining Branching Scenario Planning and Design_Trim from The Learning Guild on Vimeo
Recording of my session at DevLearn 2020
Scenario-Based Learning Experiences Podcast Interview - Experiencing eLearning
Instructional Design Hiring Manager Report 2021
Devlin Peck summarizes and analyzes responses from 101 hiring managers surveyed about what factors influence their decisions when evaluating instructional design and elearning candidates.
The Power of Story: Highlights from TLDC's Community Day Spring 2021 | Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
Kayleen Holt summarizes takeaways from TLDC's community day focused on the theme of story (including notes from my session)
Decisions, Decisions! – Engage Brain and Train!
A humorous Choose Your Own Adventure branching scenario sample by Jonathan Hill. The look and feel matches the classic books. Jonathan includes a tip to consider adding decisions in the beginning that have no impact on the outcome (just a cosmetic change), but provide a tutorial or practice on using the controls.
GitHub - bfritscher/carnac: A utility to give some insight into how you use your keyboard
Mark Weingarten used this utility in his advanced Storyline session at LSCon. It shows your keyboard shortcuts on screen so others can better understand what you're doing. Super useful for anyone doing software training or screencasts.
VEED Online Video Editor
I haven't tried this tool, but it looks like a decent tool for creating or subtitling a quick video with a free tool. The free version has limits in video length and only exports to 780p, but that might be enough for a quick portfolio sample. As a paid tool, I think most elearning folks would probably be better off paying a little more to get Camtasia instead.
Opinion | Your Friend Doesn’t Want the Vaccine. What Do You Say? - The New York Times
This is an example of a chatbot simulation to teach people how to persuade people to get vaccinated using motivational interviewing techniques. This includes immediate feedback after each choice, right or wrong (appropriate for an audience with zero background in motivational interviewing, even if it breaks up the conversation). The branching structure is a simple gauntlet. After each wrong choice, you get feedback and then are forced to pick the correct choice to continue the conversation.
Frame.io | Video Review and Collaboration Software
Tool for reviewing videos with comments. The free plan is limited to 2 projects but might be enough for some uses
Screenlight Video Review & Approval
A tool for collecting feedback on video, audio, or images. The free plan allows only 1 project, but that lets you try it out. $9/month for the first tier paid plan with unlimited reviewers.
E-learning templates and assets | Who's your ADDIE?
Marketplace for buying and selling elearning templates and assets. Think of this like a "teachers pay teachers" for IDs and elearning developers. If you have a few things you'd like to see but don't want to set up your own website to sell them, you can use this site.