Here’s a Free App to Compress Your Images

Squoosh.app is a free service from Google that compresses large images. What I like is being able to compare the before and after versions of images. It’s amazing to see how advanced the compression schemes are today. Some of the images I tested were compressed down over 90% and to the naked eye the degradation was negligible without zooming.

As you can see above, the image size goes from 4.4 MB to just under 200 KB. That’s amazing. And the image below shows that the image quality is virtually the same for the naked eye.

You can learn more about the app here. Play around with the app and all of the different settings to see what you can do. Here’s a quick tutorial to see how it works.

Click here to view the tutorial on YouTube.

Final thought:

If you’re using Rise, you don’t really need to worry about compression. Rise will do the work for you. Here’s an example where I inserted the original image (4.4 MB) and the already compressed image (98 KB). In the published output, Rise compressed the original image to 100 KB and as you can see it looks great.

However, if you have a bunch of images to upload, having smaller images may speed up the time it takes to upload your files, especially if you have a slower network connection. Just something to keep in mind.

As a bonus, here’s another site that will do some image compression. And of course, you can always use something like ImageTuner to do batch conversions.

---

Download the fully revised, free 63-page ebook: The Insider's Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro

---

Upcoming E-Learning Events

• We're currently working on locations and dates for 2019.

---

 

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for elearning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly elearning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool elearning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This elearning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

 

Here’s a Free App to Compress Your Images original post at The Rapid E-Learning Blog

E-learning Example & Tutorial: How to Fight a Bear and Live

During the recent Articulate User event at Devlearn, Sarah Hodge from SlideSugar shared a really cool example that she built in Storyline. She incorporated the 3D models from PowerPoint to create videos that she added to her e-learning course.

Click here to view the e-learning example.

It’s a great example with some really neat ideas. She also included a quick tutorial to show how she built it. There’s also a free download for practice.

Here are a few key things that stood out to me:

• 3D models are easy to work with in PowerPoint and when output as video, can add some interesting elements to your e-learning courses. Learn to work with 3D models in PowerPoint and bring them into your e-learning courses.
• Pay attention to some of the subtle audio and visual embellishments that she added to her demo such as the fog, background audio, and the water.
• In her tutorial, you notice that she added a hover state for the bear signs and then grouped those with transparent shapes to activate the hover state over the entire bear image and not just on the sign. That’s a clever trick.
• I talk a lot about “touching the screen” as a way to pull people into the course when building interactive e-learning. She has a lot of little things like that, such as getting the bear to roar at the beginning. Explore the ways she gets you to touch the screen.
• The core quiz slide she built (that she covers in the tutorial) could be stripped of content and be saved as a template for re-use. That’s something to consider whenever building custom interactions: how can it be converted to a template for the next project?
• The project is visually cohesive and consistent in it’s structure from section to section and in how animations and visual effects are used.
• When saving 3D videos from PowerPoint to use in Storyline, save them as .WMV and let Storyline convert them to .MP4. Sometimes the last frame seems jagged when using an .MP4 from PowerPoint, but it isn’t the case with .WMV.
• She didn’t use just the 3D bears. See if you can identify other places where she used 3D.

Check out the Grizzly bear demo. What are some things that stood out to you?

---

Download the fully revised, free 63-page ebook: The Insider's Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro

---

Upcoming E-Learning Events

• We're currently working on locations and dates for 2019.

---

 

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for elearning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly elearning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool elearning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This elearning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

 

E-learning Example & Tutorial: How to Fight a Bear and Live original post at The Rapid E-Learning Blog

Let's Talk About ISDs in eLearning

You will certainly commonly hear them mention analysis if you listen to techies talking. What they remain in fact talking about is Instructional Systems Style (ISD) which is the certain roadmap a company will make use of to guarantee that their workers are fulfilling their performance goals via finding out supplied in formal, informal as well as nonformal networks. Analysis, Layout, Advancement, Application, and Assessment after which the acronym ADDIE forms, are the crucial pillars of any Instructional Equipments Layout process.

Whether you as the end individual requires an Instructional Design is for a educational or corporate feature, there exist two commonly recognized versions to utilize. Both have a number of variants within them and also the very best will depend on an organization's details requirements. Simply put, an organization that makes use of Instructional System Design (ISD) in educating its labor force is able to easily develop the why, where, who, when as well as what of the whole procedure. This methodical technique to training requirements is a constant reminder to those accountable that training programs as well as pertinent assistance products need to always be efficient and effective to meet the demands of an altering landscape.

For many years, the best concern for trainers was to produce courses that fulfill the requirements of the learner. Here are concepts to work with when developing an instructional systems design;
Fail to remember web content as many people have a tendency to broach in training as well as rather, welcome context. The point of view of an audience must dictate the direction of a training initiative. The end goal below is to make sure that people get training that connects to what they are paid to do. Learners take a lot more from an instructor if they utilize examples as well as stories to show their factor. It is only all-natural that humans remember tales more than they do facts-leverage on this connection point. To cover up the procedure of training system design, motivate social eLearning where individuals develop on their own discovering methods without needing to take a seat for hrs to hear it from a person. Learners will certainly appreciate it much more if you set out the fundamentals and afterwards produce circumstances even outside the training area from where they can fill out the gaps.

With Instructional Design, users can utilize activity mapping as a style tool to aid in the recognition of content type that will certainly cater to learners private performance improvement needs.

What they are in fact referring to is (ISD) which is the details roadmap an organization will certainly make use of to guarantee that their workers are fulfilling their efficiency objectives via discovering supplied in official, informal and nonformal networks. Analysis, Style, Growth, Implementation, and also Analysis after which the acronym ADDIE kinds, are the crucial columns of any Instructional Solutions Layout process.

Whether you as the end user needs an Instructional Equipments Layout is for a academic or corporate function, there exist 2 widely acknowledged designs to use.

3 Reasons to Use Animated GIFs in E-learning

At a recent workshop we discussed the popularity of working animated gifs and how they can be used in e-learning courses. Here are three reasons you can use them in your courses.

Animated Gifs for Novel Visual Design

E-learning courses are still mostly visual. And one part of engaging you learners is to create visually rich experiences. This doesn’t replace instructional design, but it does help make your course look more interesting and contributes to capture the person’s attention.

I love this example created by one of our community managers. She did a great job using animated .gifs to enrich the visuals in her Rise demo. How many animated .gifs do you count in her demo?

Click to view the Rise demo.

Speaking of novelty, in the example below I added an animated gif to a slider that represents the module progress. At a certain point, the state of the slide thumb changes from one waling character to another.

Animated Gifs to Add Humor

One reason animated gifs are so popular is they’re perfect for sharing funny things and memes. And they’re exaggerated with the looping animations. Why not leverage the humor that these offer and work them into your courses? A couple of considerations: many of the gifs probably violate some copyright laws and training isn’t supposed to be funny. Well, maybe it can be funny, but there’s a good chance that regardless of the content someone will complain. If you do use humor, you’ll really want to make sure that it’s appropriate to your audience.

 

Animated Gifs to Show Procedural Steps

The two reasons above are less instructional. This next one fits better with instructional design and training. Use animated gifs to quickly show procedures or steps in a process. If you’re showing steps, it’s good to add some reference points because the content loops and people may not be clear where in the process the steps fall.

Here’s an animated gif that shows the root canal process.

Click here to view the animated gif (19 MB)

And here’s a prototype built in PowerPoint that demonstrates showing four steps.

Animated gifs work well for e-learning courses. If you use them in your courses currently, feel free to share ways that they’re used. In the meantime, check out these previous articles on creating animated gifs:

• How to Create Animated .GIFs for Free
• How to Make Animated Gifs from Video 
• Here Are Some Free Animated Gifs

---

Download the fully revised, free 63-page ebook: The Insider's Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro

---

Upcoming E-Learning Events

• November 8 (Edinburgh): E-Learning Roadshow. Register now.
• November 12 (Dublin): E-Learning Roadshow. Register now.
• November 15 (Prague): E-Learning Bootcamp. Register now.

---

 

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for elearning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly elearning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool elearning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This elearning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

 

3 Reasons to Use Animated GIFs in E-learning original post at The Rapid E-Learning Blog

Your Branched Scenario Needs to Look Like Something. Is this it?

Developing the content and flow of an interactive branched scenarios is one thing. Creating the visual structure is another. In today’s post we’ll look at some key considerations when building scenarios and come up with a simple storyboarding process to help think through the scenario design and layouts.

Branched Scenarios: 3C Model

Years ago, I introduced the 3C model to build interactive scenarios: challenge, choices, and consequences. It’s a simple model to help think through the content requirements. It starts with challenging the learner’s understanding through some sort of contextual and real-world situation where decisions need to be made. Give them some choices to make. And the choices produce consequences.

The consequences can be simple with immediate feedback or the 3C model can be compounded where each consequence produces another challenge and branches indefinitely. Of course, it’s hard enough to get your subject matter expert to give you ten good multiple-choice questions, let alone provide all of the content and nuance to build a complex branched interaction. I prefer a simple scenario structure.

Branched Scenarios: Visual Structure

A branched scenario starts with a blank screen. And from there, we add the scenario structure. But what exactly is it that we need and how do we design the screen layouts?

Let’s start with what needs to be on the screen. Here are a few of the main onscreen components that make up many branched scenarios:

• Background: the background (or environment) is an easy way to establish context. I usually look for a single image that helps do that.
• Characters: generally speaking there are actors in the scenario. Sometimes they can be implied and don’t need to be onscreen. For example, looking at an email or text message implies that someone in the scenario is viewing it. Or perhaps, the learner is the character. However, in many cases, the scenario actually features characters. Is it one or more? How do you show back and forth conversation?
• Challenge: the screen consists of some text that presents the situation and challenge. That text needs to go somewhere. Does it go up, down, left or right? Is it there to start, or does it get exposed when the user does something like click a button?
• Choices: once the challenge is presented, the learner has to make a decision. That usually means there’s an assortment of choices and then some sort of button (or other interaction) to make the selection. Where will that be on the screen?
• Consequences: each choice usually includes some sort of feedback. It could be all of the feedback or perhaps an alert that the decision has created a new challenge. In either case, how is that displayed?

Branched Scenario: Simplify with a Storyboard

As you review the list above, it becomes apparent that there’s a lot to put on the screen. In workshops we usually create a blank slide and then a box to represent all of those things above. Then we play around with layouts to see what we can get onscreen. After that, we explore different ways to move the content offscreen and use triggered actions to expose the content.

There’s a lot that makes up the scenario layout. The image below represents some common scenario layouts.

Of course, there are all sorts of ways to structure a scenario. Keep in mind not everything needs to go on one screen. You can use layers and lightboxes to expose additional content. Mouseover interactions are great to expand information without requiring that the person leave the current screen.

One way to get started is to create three blank slides: one for each part of the 3C model.

• Challenge slide: set up the scenario by adding visual context and all the supporting text. You’re not writing War and Peace. Keep it short and get right to the point.
• Choice slide: determine how many choices the person will have. Also determine if you will present ancillary options. For example, you may want some links to talk to team members or contact HR for more assistance. What will those look like, where will they be placed on the screen, and what does the content look like?
• Consequence slide: what feedback needs to be displayed? Is it just text? Will there be a character?

Once you have the three elements on separate slides, it’s easier to see what you have to expose during the scenario. From there you can begin to assemble the screen. Some people create cheats. For example, create a “folder” that can be placed on a different slide or layer. The folder is a good metaphor and fits a lot of contexts. It’s also a nice visual that can hold a lot of content. It allows you to get rid of character images, buttons and a lot of the other clutter that you have using a single slide.

In a previous post, I simplified the process by suggesting that you use a visual container. The container adds context and holds the text. That’s one option. But there are a lot more. The key is to determine what you need first using the three slides. And then from there play around with ideas on what to add to the screen and what to expose later and when to expose it.

---

Download the fully revised, free 63-page ebook: The Insider's Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro

---

Upcoming E-Learning Events

• October 10 & 11 (Durham, NC): Articulate Roadshow. Register here.
• October 23 (Las Vegas, NV): Articulate User Conference with Devlearn
• November 5 & 6 (London): E-Learning Roadshow. Register now.
• November 8 (Edinburgh): E-Learning Roadshow. Register now.
• November 12 (Dublin): E-Learning Roadshow. Register now.
• November 15 (Prague): E-Learning Bootcamp. Register now.

---

 

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for elearning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly elearning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool elearning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This elearning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

 

Your Branched Scenario Needs to Look Like Something. Is this it? original post at The Rapid E-Learning Blog

Do You Need to be a Programmer to Build E-Learning Courses?

Do you need to be an e-learning programmer to build e-learning courses?

A lot has changed with e-learning over the past decade or so. As noted before, it used to require a team of people that usually included someone with some programming skills. However, as the rapid e-learning market emerged, the need for programming skills virtually disappeared. That’s great because it opened the industry to a lot of people and organizations.

The challenge though is that while you don’t need to be a programmer, it is still good to know a little about some basic programming. For example, one question we see quite a bit is how to use web objects in Storyline or embed content using the embed block in Rise. Often this involves using an iframe or some other simple web page. And sometimes it means tweaking the embed codes provided by some services like YouTube.

For example, here’s a tutorial I created to show someone in the community how to embed JotForm into Rise using the embed code JotForm generates. What is apparent is that I am like many of you and need to fumble around a bit to get things to work.

Because many people come to the industry without experience or a background programming, it’s a good idea to have access to some resources and tools. Today, we’ll look at a few places to go for quick help.

E-Learning Programmer: HTML Basics

W3 Schools: I recommend this site quite a bit. There’s a lot of good info, tutorials, and ways to test code on your own.

• Learn to create a basic web page to use for local web objects in Storyline. Often, I create simple pages with resource links and then link to them locally. This allows the html page to become part of the published course.
• Learn to work with iframes and embed codes in Rise. Embed codes can be tricky sometimes based on what the source site provides. Often there’s a lot of gibberish that needs to be removed. The more you know about the iframe basics, the better off you’ll be.

Like many of you, I’m no programmer, so I lean on this site to learn to do basic tweaks to some of the code I need to modify for my courses.

E-Learning Programmer: JavaScript Basics

Some of you may think that JavaScript is some sort of note you write to pass to your local barista. That’s OK. Because this post is for you.

Again, you don’t need to be a programmer to build great e-learning. The authoring software does all of the heavy lifting. However, using JavaScript does extend what you can do with the software and adds a lot more customization and functionality. Thus, knowing a little can go a long way. This is especially true with Storyline because on the Storyline side it’s just a matter of adding a trigger to execute some code pasted in the trigger. But it does mean, you have some code and you know at least what to do with it to get the results you want.

Here are some examples from the community to get ideas on how to leverage JavaScript in your e-learning courses.

Here are some good resources to learn JavaScript for free:

• Introduction to JavaScript
• Free Code Camp
• EdX JavaScript

You don’t need to be a programmer but having some basic understanding of the code that can extend what you do in your e-learning courses is a good idea. Are there other free resources for learning code that you’ve used? If you do use JavaScript in your Storyline course, what are ways you’ve used it?

---

Download the fully revised, free 63-page ebook: The Insider's Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro

---

Upcoming E-Learning Events

• October 10 & 11 (Durham, NC): Articulate Roadshow. Register here.
• October 23 (Las Vegas, NV): Articulate User Conference with Devlearn
• November 5 & 6 (London): E-Learning Roadshow. Register now.
• November 8 (Edinburgh): E-Learning Roadshow. Register now.
• November 12 (Dublin): E-Learning Roadshow. Register now.
• November 15 (Prague): E-Learning Bootcamp. Register now.

---

 

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for elearning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly elearning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool elearning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This elearning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

 

Do You Need to be a Programmer to Build E-Learning Courses? original post at The Rapid E-Learning Blog