3 Simple Steps to Create Background Images for Your Next E-Learning Scenario

Tom I have read your other blogs on clip art and the many things you can do with them, i.e., animation, etc. I’m glad that you didn’t rule out how great to have backgrounds to make a scenario. The PowerPoints I have made based on your blogs I’ve used a plain white background; however I see how putting in a different background can create the scenario. Well thanks again Tom, you have inspired me to create and save backgrounds.

Cheers!

Hi Tom, and thanks for another useful post. I wonder what you and others think, however, of the proposition of doing scenarios without any graphics?

I’ve just done a set of scenarios for managers in my company, and decided to leave them as just text; I admit this was partly due to the difficulty of finding images of the same people with different facial expressions, but the more I thought about it the more I hoped it would enable the users to visualise their own staff – their latecomers, long-term sick, tribunal managers and family members; on the same principle that when you read a book the characters have the faces you put on them, but when you see the film they’re ‘fixed’, can we expect the learner to engage more when they ‘see’ perhaps someone they know from their own office? They’ve only just gone out so I’ve no feedback to judge it on, only my hunch. What do you think?

“Don’t be afraid to stretch the image outside of the PowerPoint slide.”

That’s the most important sentence in your entire post (though don’t get me wrong – the other sentences are good too).

Going beyond the boundaries of your slide transforms your content from “meh, looks like PowerPoint-to-eLearning” to a “hey, it’s a real big-dollar multimedia presentation!”

Everything is great, you write a lot about using MS Clipart to create courses, but the true is, that it’s illegal to use this graphics in companies(for any commercial use).
So for lots of as it’s useless(unnfortunately).

We wanted an interesting background for a workshop that suggested a tropical island. I took a clip art from PowerPoint of a beach looking out at the water, removed the items I didn’t want, squeezed the water down a little to give me more sky, then took some palm fronds from another file and added them in around the top left and right.

The result gives you the feeling that you’re in the shade of a palm tree looking out over the beach. There’s lots of room in the sky for content. We ended up with a lot of interest for this course despite the topic being how to create a file plan!

Later when I started creating eLearning for the same project, I used the same background. Again, the sky gave me room for content and the beach gave me a great location for navigation controls, and where I needed some secondary controls they went in the water. A simple sound file of a steel drum band playing something upbeat gives everyone that tropical island feeling.

The scenarios revolve around a group of people getting ready to deliver hurricane preparedness sessions for the island residents – a good reason to work with the file management software to find and update last year’s information, update the handouts, find the evaluation forms, update the slides etc. Most people can relate to this and the feedback about the design has been very positive.

Norman, for some good examples of text-only scenarios, see http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/quandary/version_2/examples/

Everytime there’s a blog post about clip art someone makes statements about copyright issues. The author isn’t telling us to violate any copyrights. He’s showing us how to use clipart. You can apply the same ideas to your purchased clipart.

I disagree with Damian about using Microsoft clipart for commercial use. In fact, a previous post (I don’t know how to add the html link) had a good series of comments about using clipart. Here’s an excerpt from Ezra, “…you may copy and use the media elements, and license, display and distribute them, along with your modifications as part of your software products, including your web sites, but you may not (i) sell, license or distribute copies of the media elements by themselves or as part of any collection, or product if the primary value of the product is in the media elements; …”

Great article…as usual!

How do you set up these scenarios? How do you tell the program to move based on the response? I think Captivate does this…but would prefer not to use this if I can avoid it! Ryan, what did you use to create the examples above? Is that in Quizmaker?

Mandy

Thanks for your always e-learning preciuos pieces.

Hi Tom,

I really value your input into eLearning, as a fellow eLearning developer it’s great to see the effort you put into your posts. But I think it’s time you moved on from posting on ungrouping clipart graphics in powerpoint. Yes it is a great resource and one I use but it’s as simple as attaching a picture in an email.

Thats a big call from me who hasn’t written any blogs myself but would love to start reading more advanced practices/informtion on eLearning. You have a wealth of knowledge in the area – share the great stuff and lose the basic stuff.

Always love your articles. Do you have any suggestions for backgrounds when your company branding restricts the usage of clip art?

I use alot of photos in my presentations. Can they also be manipulated in the same way clip art can?

Hello sir,
I wonder we are fantasizing about cliparts a lot, as far as ia m concerned i dont use clipart too often, i would be more obliged if we have an article about making e learning courses minus clipart information. Although the information you render is of a great use and very stunning.

Re Adrian’s comment that ungrouping clip art is “as simple as attaching a picture in an e-mail” – I’m afraid I disagree.

I’ve tried working with ungrouped clip art and find I can do the basic stuff, like taking portions out and flipping images, but when it comes to things like changing the angle of a person’s arm while still keeping it coming out from the shoulder, I get in a real muddle.

Tom, I really appreciate all your tutorial postings on the subject of using clip art. Is there an interactive course I could work through on this, please?

M

Dear Tom:

I find your blog very useful and informative. Thank you for your posts.

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