Blog
A space where I share my insight, expertise and thoughts around all things eLearning, Learning and Development and technology.
Round round baby…Don’t get stuck on the feedback Carousel
In today’s blog post we’re discussing feedback. Feedback from your clients or stakeholders is crucial in gauging whether the learning your are developing is meeting their needs and expectations. It helps guide the development and design phases, and more often than not you will have multiple feedback stages within a project.
But…
Whilst feedback is necessary, it can be easy to slip into review cycle after review cycle if you’re not careful. What do I mean by this? Think jumping on the feedback carousel and going round and round and round until the client eventually decides it’s time to get off.
Let’s talk instructional design
If I see anymore LinkedIn gurus luring transitioning teachers in with promises that they already have all the skills they will need to make six figures, I’m going to go insane. Because inherently, children and adults learn differently. Also, if there’s some secret to ID’s making six figures please share, because I’m definitely not in on it and I’ve been doing this for 8 years!
Freebie Friday…On a Monday!
It’s freebie time again! Today we have a simple flashcard interaction for you to make your own. Change the text, images, slide design, use this as you wish!
It’s not personal, just business - Receiving feedback
I held my breath as she picked up the garment, studied it, frowned and then began to rip it apart. No not figuratively. Literally.
She told me the stitching was lousy (or words to the effect) and said I needed to do it again.
Nowadays I can look back on this moment and laugh, because ultimately she was right. The stitching was lousy and it probably did need redoing. But at the time it felt like I’d been punched in the gut. This lecturer in question didn’t offer any advice or support to help me improve my technique, heck she didn’t even ask me if I wanted her input. She just walked away.
Freebie Friday…on a Monday!
Little enhancements can really elevate an eLearning and if like me, you use custom navigation, the design of your buttons is important, not only aesthetically but for accessibility and functionality too.
So I've pulled together 7 really simple button designs each with different animations and effects, for you to copy and drop into your next Storyline eLearning.
Reflections on 6 months of self-employment
Maybe it’s the trauma of 2023 making me live a bit more in the moment, maybe I’m a bit delusional, or maybe I’ve finally stopped giving myself such a hard time. Who knows. Either way, I feel much more present now and able to enjoy things as they are. I’m no longer hungrily running towards the next promotion, or pay rise.
How Bathroom tiles got me thinking about UX design.
Having worked as an administrator myself in an L&D department, I can say with conviction that most of the feedback we received regarding our learning was not about the content, but how frustrating it was to book on to the course, or how the eLearning navigation didn’t perform correctly.
Tackling Tight Turnarounds
Quite often, stakeholders will want the project done yesterday and will be thinking about their own targets to hit and boxes to check.
Balancing creating learning in a short timescale, versus producing something that is still engaging and encourages learning retention, can be tricky and there almost always will be compromise on some level.
Awesome Adobe alternatives
Once you get your head around it, the Adobe software can be pretty easy to use, but if you don’t know what you’re doing it can be intimidating and spending £60 a month on a subscription, just to spend most of your time glued to Youtube trying to find the tool you need, is not ideal!
But did you know there are many free, or cheaper alternatives to the Adobe suite that can offer you the chance to practice, without feeling like you need to ‘get your money’s worth?’
When being stubborn pays off - Incorporating morph into Storyline
The authoring tool Articulate Storyline is sometimes described as being ‘PowerPoint on steroids,’ and whilst that’s a topic for another day, Storyline is close to being a PowerPoint replica in its basic functionality and façade. However, Storyline is missing one of my favourite PowerPoint features…
…The morph transition.
Diluted AI for ELearning? Switch things up, without starting from scratch
Don’t worry this isn’t going to be another post on the pros and cons of ChatGPT. Amid the obsession with ChatGPT, many people are forgetting that AI powered systems and platforms have actually been a part of digital learning for some time.
AVOIDING THE DREADED COGNITIVE OVERLOAD
In an eLearning, it can be really easy to slip into doing ‘too much.’ As developers we always want to try and make our eLearning courses as interactive, engaging and visually pleasing as possible, but sometimes simple really is better.
Bringing Gamification into 2023
Not all gamification needs to be blindingly obvious, in some instances the learner could be scoring points without even realising it.