Here’s a free elearning template I created for a recent workshop. I used it to highlight a few key production tips, which you’ll find below. The free template includes three interactions: two timelines and one process interaction.

Free E-Learning Template Example

Click here to view an example of the free template.

• Download the free elearning template here.
• Here’s a simplified PowerPoint version of the timeline: demo and download.

Timeline Interaction 1

The first timeline interaction features segments with dots that represent events. Click the dot and it reveals a layer with all of the events for that particular segment.

Timeline Interaction 2

The second timeline looks similar to the first. However, each dot has it’s own content layer. This opens up more space for event-specific content. Also, the dot shows a visited state after selecting it.

Process Interaction

The process interaction is a bonus that I created to show how quickly the objects can be moved around to create a different type of interaction.

Key Learning Points

Here are some of the things I pointed out in the workshop:

• Keep with basic shapes when creating interactions. They’re easy to re-use, copy, and modify. Especially when you want to duplicate functionality.
• Format painter is your friend because you just need to format one shape and apply it to the next.
• Animations and transitions work if they’re not superfluous or too dramatic.
• Play around with layouts and template ideas. In this example, I matched the top part of the screen to the player color so it looks like the header blends into the player.
• Naming is important. Notice how the object titles and layers match? This makes setting up triggers really easy. And if you need to troubleshoot it’s easier to spot if a connection is wrong.

Hope you enjoy the template or use it to inspire your own.

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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 e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

In a previous post I mentioned how to find color schemes using color schemers.  They’re great tools to help find the right color palette for your courses. Personally I find them valuable because I have slight color blindness. So having a system that keeps me in line really helps.

Use the Color Picker to Manually Create Color Schemes

Another way to create color schemes to manually pick colors from an image. In the tutorials I did for Storyline, I show how to use the color picker to pick colors from a background image.

With the color picker, I get colors that match colors from the image on the slides. Look at the image below. The tabs and side panel were color picked from the building on the right of the background image. I also added a colored, semi-transparent shape over the background to add some tinting and subdue the background a bit.

You’re not limited to Storyline, you can also do the same thing in PowerPoint.

Create Color Schemes from a Picture or Logo

Instead of creating a color scheme by manually picking colors, you can create one from the colors in an image. Upload an image and then let the color scheming site create a color palette for you.

• Color Hunter: upload an image
• Color Palette Generator: add an image URL to create the scheme
• Kuler: upload an image or create custom themes using formulas; requires an account
• Pictalous: upload an image and get advice from multiple sites
• Colrd: upload an image and identify your image DNA

Some of you have corporate style guides where the color information is provided. If you don’t have a formal style guide, you can upload a company-related image and have the color scheming site generate a usable palette.

As the image above shows, I uploaded a screen capture of my blog to pull together a color scheme. This is something you can do, too. You can use one of the following:

• Company web site. Take a screenshot of your company website (or something else). Upload it to one of these sites and capture a color palette.
• Company logo. Use the company logo to do the same thing.
• Marketing collateral. You may have marketing or product material that you can use to pull a color palette.

Once you have a color palette, use it to create custom color themes in PowerPoint and Storyline.

As you can see, creating a custom color palette is pretty easy. And once you have one, you can customize your course to your heart’s content.

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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 e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

Had a question about finding good free audio sound effects for elearning courses. Do a search and you’ll find hundreds of sites. However, most of them are lame and pain to go through. So I pulled together a list of sites that you may find worthwhile. The truth is once you find a good one there’s no need to look at dozens more.

As with any free content, if you’re using the free audio files for real projects, be sure to check the license agreements. Many of these free audio sites are under Creative Commons licensing, but check to be sure.

If you need to give attribution to the free audio source, here’s a post where I shared a few ways to do so.

Free Audio Sound Effect Sites for Commercial Use

• FindSound: a good search engine for sounds. Be sure to verify the license when you pull free audio files from one of the sites.
• Freesound.org: a mix of all sorts of free audio sound effects. Review their Creative Commons licensing.
• OrangeFreeSounds: background audio, sound effects, and various sound loops. Need to attribute the source.
• Archive.org: lots of stuff, but a bit cluttered. Click on the audio title to see how you can use the files.
• freeSFX: free sound and music. Requires an account, but all files are free to use.
• MediaCollege.com: some good reaction sounds; free for commercial use.
• FreeSoundEffects: a mixture of free and paid sound effects.
• SoundBible: what more can you do to describe free sound effects?
• iBeat.org: a lot of music loops under Creative Commons.
• Sound Board: user created soundboards; registration required. Not sure about licensing.
• Get-Sounds: free but limited selection; no licensing info.
• ZapSplat: free sound effects and SFX packs.

Commercial Audio Sound Effects

• Amazon: buy sound effect albums for as little as $8.
• SoundDogs.com: thousands of very specific sound effects. I like the rollover preview option.
• AudioJungle: lots of good sound effects and relatively inexpensive.
• SoundSnap: probably one of the largest libraries. Can buy sounds individually or subscribe.

Personally, I don’t use sound effects very often and when I do, I have a bunch of sound effects from some CDs I purchased a few years ago. I also like to search discount bins in used software and half-price book stores. Often I’ll find media DVDs with audio and graphic files I can use.

So there you have it, a good starting point if you’re looking for free sound effects. Are there any free audio sound effects sites you recommend?

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

Let’s face it, we’re not all graphic designers and it can be a chore to get the right look for your slides. This is especially true if your slide is a little light on content leaving a lot of white space. And when this happens, we feel obligated to fill it with something like decorative clip art.

The following visual design tip is a great way to fill the space and maintain some context. It adds texture, looks nice, and is really easy to implement.

Examples of the Visual Design Tip

I’m not sure if there’s a formal name for this visual design tip but I like to call it the transparent echo technique. You’ll notice that the main image is repeated, like an echo. It’s still present but it’s softer and subtle. Here are some good examples of it in action.

As you can see the transparent echo technique works with objects, characters, and even illustrations. It’s a good visual design tip to have in your tool chest.

Step to Create the Transparent Echo Technique

Essentially you copy and paste the primary object and use it as a background image.

• Duplicate the main image and place on the background.
• Scale the background image up and crop it or move it a little off screen. There’s no right or wrong way to align it. Just do what looks good.
• Subdue the image. There are a few ways to do this. You can make the image semi-transparent or use the recolor image feature in PowerPoint and Storyline. Another option is to cover the background with a white shape that is semi-transparent. That gives you an easy way to play adjust the level of transparency.

Here’s a video tutorial that walks through the process.

Click here to view YouTube video.

As you can see it’s pretty simple to implement and it’s repeatable with different images throughout the course. Thus you can have slides with different objects, but using the transparent echo technique allows the slides and visual design to remain consistent throughout the course. This technique works great for start screens and menus.

Here are some additional production tips and considerations:

• Remove the color from the background image. I find that gray images blend better as they are made transparent.
• Make sure to be consistent in the transparency setting if you use the effect on multiple slides.
• Colorize the overlay shape. Pick a color from the main image and tint a semi-transparent shape that sits over the background image.
• Cut out images work best. You can remove backgrounds from the image in a graphics editor or PowerPoint.
• Play around with the scaling of the image and how it’s framed on the slide.
• Use derivatives of the same image. Look at the doctor image above. Same character but different poses.

The transparent echo technique is an easy way to dress up slides without plastering it with clip art or decorative images. You maintain context and get a nice graphic with minimal effort. If you try your hand at it, I’d love to see what you do.

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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 e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

Why should one use variables in elearning, especially since the authoring tools are so easy to use?

Good question.

Many course authors transition from facilitated classroom training to elearning development. Their companies buy software and then they’re left on their own to build courses. If you’re using software like Storyline, producing courses is relatively simple. However, the tendency is to keep course design simple, as well.

Because of this, many courses are mostly linear, explainer-type content with generic navigation. This is fine for some courses, but what if you want more than linear content? What if you want training that can evaluate the learner’s responses and provide an experience unique to that person? You can build this type of course, but you need to use variables.

What are Variables in E-Learning?

A variable doesn’t have a fixed value. It can be changed or adapted as things happen. I learned to think of a variable as a bucket that holds something (a value). This value is dynamic and can change based on user input or actions.

For example, if you want to acquire the learner’s name to display in the course, you create a bucket (variable) to collect the name (value). And then when you need to display the name, you reference the variable’s value. The user name value isn’t fixed until the user enters the name. That’s what makes it a variable—the value is dynamic.

In a simple sense, I like to think of the user as the variable. I don’t know what she’ll enter or what decisions she’ll make in the course. But I can program the course to collect and evaluate what she does and use it to create a more dynamic learning experience.

Why Use Variables in E-Learning

Variables allow course authors to create dynamic learning experiences. With variables, we can evaluate what’s happening in the course and tailor an experience unique to the learner. For example, to create a personalized learning experience we can display the learner’s name, allow them to customize avatars and color schemes, and even select a local language.

Here are some other common reasons to use variables:

• Transform a simple course flow to something more complex and dynamic.
• Evaluate the choices the learner is making and provide remedial and custom feedback.
• Create an adaptive learning path and direct the learner based on results.
• Allow a personalized learning experience.
• Track progress and completed modules.
• Gamify the learning process using variable-based game mechanics.
• Accept numeric input and process calculations.

These are just a few common use cases for variables. There’s really a lot more you can do with variables in elearning.

If you’re just getting started, working with variables may seem a bit daunting. But it’s not. It just takes a little practice and application. Start with something simple and build from there. Here are some good tutorials to help you learn more and they include practice activities:

• Introduction to Variables
• Understanding Variables.

How are you using variables in your elearning courses?

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

One of my goals each year is to read one book a month that will help sharpen my course-building skills. I’m always asked for book recommendations. Some of the recommendations are for those getting started, even if you’re an experienced course designer it helps to review familiar course design concepts or expand to other fields like UX or graphic design.

If your goal is to read twelve books this year, here’s a list to help you get started. Even if you don’t read them all this year, some of these are good to have on hand in your elearning reference library.

Instructional Design Books

• Design for How People Learn (recently updated with 3 new chapters)
• ISD From the Ground Up: A No-Nonsense Approach to Instructional Design
• Understanding by Design
• E-Learning Fundamentals: A Practical Guide
• Michael Allen’s books. I recommend starting with one from his E-Learning Library series.

Gamification Books

Gamification is more than a buzz word and the principles that make games work can be applied to course design to create more engaging and effective elearning.

• Gamification of Learning and Instruction
• Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play
• Actionable Gamification

Graphic & UX Design Books

Courses are more than content. The look and feel of the content is also important as well as the user experience. Here are some good books to help you learn more.

• Non-Designer’s Design Book (4th edition)
• About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
• Graphic Design for Non-Designers

Video Production

Video is viable for elearning now so it doesn’t hurt to learn more about using it in your courses. The challenge for many of us is how to do it on a budget. Here are two books that have been recommended to me. I haven’t read either yet. If you have, let me know what you think.

• Rapid Video Development for Trainers: How to Create Learning Videos Fast and Affordably
• Creating Video for Teachers and Trainers: Producing Professional Video with Amateur Equipment

The links to Amazon books may produce a slight commission.

12 Free eBooks

I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s a good list of free ebooks in the elearning community. If you don’t want to spend money, this is a good place to start. You have one free ebook for each month.

• E-Learning for Beginners

• The Insider’s Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro

• 5 Highly Effective Strategies for Creating Engaging E-Learning

• 9 Steps to Better E-Learning Project Management

• The Essential Guide to Working with Subject Matter Experts

• Building Compelling Interactions: What You Need to Know

• The Secret to Creating Great E-Learning Videos

• Essential Guide to Visual Design

• How to Use Typography to Improve Your E-Learning

• 6 Best Practices for Designing Accessible E-Learning

• Getting Started with Articulate Storyline

• Getting Started with Articulate Studio

My first book to read will be Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play. What are you reading this year?

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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 e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

2015 was another great year in an industry that’s still really hot. I hope you had a great year, too. Here’s a rundown of some of this year’s rapid elearning goodness.

Things You Need to Know

Before we review the best elearning posts for 2015, here are some important things related to this blog and the community.

• Don’t use Google Drive to share courses. Many of you participate in the weekly challenges and use Google Drive to host and share the courses. That needs to change because Google is removing that option and all of the courses you share will no longer work. Here are a few other options for hosting courses. If I were sharing courses, I’d create my own domain and manage it that way. It’s less than $10/month.
• Microsoft finally got rid of clip art. You’ll either need to hire someone to do your graphics, buy into a graphics vendor, or create your own. You can also download free assets from the community or other sites and learn to edit them in PowerPoint.
• Articulate Guru Winners. I want to give props to this year’s Articulate Guru winners and encourage you to check out what they created. We also have all sorts of great elearning examples and weekly challenge modules to view. They’re great for ideas and inspiration.

Best E-Learning Posts for 2015

Here is a solid collection of blog posts for those getting started with elearning and who want to learn more.

• Top Instructional Design Tips
• How Organizations Ruin Their Online Training Programs
• How to Improve Your E-Learning Skills
• How to Apply Visual Thinking to Course Design
• What’s the Right Length for E-Learning Courses?
• How to Create Successful Training
• Get Your Learners to Help You Build Better Training
• Build One Course that Meets Many Needs
• Create Better Interactive Scenarios
• Speed Things Up with Pre-Assessment Scenarios
• How to Edit All of Those Free Vector Images
• Build Your E-Learning Skills with These Tips
• Find Free Stock Images with this Search Site
• 5 Ways to Engage Your Learners
• How to Get Started Building E-Learning Courses
• Why PowerPoint Isn’t the Right Choice for Interactive E-Learning

Best E-Learning Posts with Free Downloads

We all love free stuff so here’s a list of all the 2015 blog posts with free assets, applications, and templates.

• Simple Interactive Scenario Template
• 45 Free Stock Images
• Free Hand-drawn Objects
• 80 Free Stock Images
• New Hire Orientation Template
• Free E-Learning E-Book
• Free Closed Captioning Applications
• Free Vector Image Sites
• Free People Icons
• 60 Free Stock Images
• Interactive Conversation Template
• Circle Lift Presentation Template
• Interactive Zooming Office Template
• Interactive Image Template
• Over 30 Free PowerPoint Templates
• Even More Free Stock Images
• A Complete List of Free Stock Image Sites
• 24 Free Tabs Templates
• Free Office Interaction Template
• Interactive Check Mark Template

I’m excited about 2016 and hope you are, too. Have a great one!

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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 e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

At a recent workshop I showed the difference between creating interactive elearning in PowerPoint and Storyline. For the workshop I created a few different templates. One of them was a tabs interaction. Following is the free PowerPoint template and the corresponding Storyline version. You can use them as you wish.

Free Interactive Tabs Template

• Click here to view the template in action.
• Click here to download the free template.

Free PowerPoint Template

• Click here to view the template in action: side tabs or top tabs.
• Click here to download the free PowerPoint templates.

Production Tips

I usually get questions on how to edit the free templates and make them interactive. Here are a few tips:

• Leverage the master slides. Try to put as much persistent content on the slide master as you can. Sometimes you don’t know what’s persistent until you’re done. That’s OK. At that point, it’s worth adding it to the master slide and then deleting it from the slides. You’ll be glad you did it when you need to edit the slides later.
• Learn to work with hyperlinks in PowerPoint because interactions in PowerPoint mostly work the same way: they are hyperlinks to other slides. Also, hyperlinks work on master slides. Storyline’s a lot easier because you can create triggers to slide layers and add more interactive features.
• Start by downloading some of the many free templates and deconstructing them. That’s an easy way to learn.

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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 e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

In the spirit of the holiday season, here’s a free elearning template. It can be used as a progress meter, a main slide menu, or simple process interaction.

There are two versions of the free elearning template: Storyline 2 and PowerPoint.

Free E-Learning Template: Storyline 2

• Click here to view the elearning template in action.
• Download the free elearning template.

Free E-Learning Template: PowerPoint

• Click here to view the elearning template in action.
• Download the free PowerPoint template.

Production Tips

• As you can see there’s a difference between the two templates. Storyline has a more complete range of interactive capability so the template employs a hover effect. The PowerPoint version is limited to a click-and-reveal interaction.
• The PowerPoint template is edited in the slide master. Each tab has a link to a specific slide (use CTRL+K as a shortcut).
• The Storyline template uses links to slide layers.
• The templates use the design color schemes, so changing the design theme color should change the colors of the interaction.

Additional Free E-Learning Templates & Assets

Check out these other free templates and assets shared in the community recently:

• Flat Icon Pack (PNG)
• Flat Menu Template (PPT)
• Button Set Icons (PNG)
• Navigation Tips (SL1)
• Checklist Interaction (SL2)
• Spiral Notebook Graphic (PPT)
• Circle Menu Template (PPT)

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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 e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

If you follow this blog then you know that I’m a big fan of PowerPoint. In fact, I think it’s one of the single best applications out there. And with some practice and creativity, there’s not much you can’t do to create engaging multimedia.

But is PowerPoint the best option if you want to create interactive elearning?

Here’s What Makes PowerPoint Special

Just so you know that this isn’t just another trendy PowerPoint bashing post, I’m starting with some of the cool things you can do with PowerPoint. Here’s a sampling from some of my previous blog posts:

• Edit Free Vector Graphics in PowerPoint
• Top PowerPoint Tips & Tricks
• Create Illustrated Characters in PowerPoint
• Here’s Why PowerPoint Doesn’t Suck
• Create Custom Stock Images in PowerPoint
• 3 PowerPoint Shortcuts
• Dozens of PowerPoint Tips

PowerPoint is a great multimedia application. But it’s not necessarily a great application if you regularly build interactive elearning.

Interactive E-Learning 101

Let’s consider the basics of interactivity and then see where PowerPoint falls short. Essentially there are three types of onscreen interactions: click, hover, and drag. Data entry (such as adding a name) is an additional form of interactivity if you build a course using variables.

Which of those types of interactions can you build with PowerPoint? For the most part, you’re limited to click-and-reveal interactions. Thus, you only have a third of the interaction types available and no programming control for more advanced capability.

Here’s Why PowerPoint Fails at Interactive E-Learning

Below are two interactive scenario examples. One is built in PowerPoint and the other in an application that better supports interactive authoring. Essentially, the scenarios are the same. The big difference is in the production process and time it takes create the interactions.

Here’s the interactive scenario built in PowerPoint.

Click here to view the demo.

It works. However, what did it take to build? The PowerPoint interaction includes 31 slides. That’s for only one of the interactive scenarios. If I built out all 6 scenarios, I’d have to add an additional 145 slides and hundreds of individual objects and hyperlinks.

Here’s the same interactive scenario rebuilt in Storyline.

Click here to view the demo.

The Storyline version only has 5 slides and it includes a lot more subtle interactive features, like button hovers and visited states. If I wanted to include all 6 scenarios, I’d only add 18 additional slides.

The image above demonstrates the difference between the PowerPoint and Storyline versions of the same interaction. As you can see, the PowerPoint version requires a lot more effort. The Storyline version is much more streamlined and easier to manage.

In fact, if I built this scenario from scratch rather than importing the PowerPoint file like I did for the demo, I’d probably get each interaction to 3 slides. And since the slides are generally the same, I only need to build one slide with three feedback options and reuse them. Not considering the content, building the structure for the interactive scenario would only take a few minutes. That’s not the case with PowerPoint which would take longer and become progressively more challenging to manage as the slide count would increase dramatically.

The other benefit is that the Storyline version of the file can be saved as a template and easily reused for future scenarios. That’s a big time saver. And time is money.

So what’s the point?

• PowerPoint Has Limited Interactions. For the most part, you’re limited to click-and-reveal interactions. There’s no drag-and-drop or button rollovers. Try to create a simple visited state for a button clicked. You can’t. And forgot about adding data entry or variables to build more sophisticated interactive elearning.
• Building Interactions in PowerPoint is Time Consuming. Sure, you can build interactive elements in PowerPoint. The example above demonstrates that.  However, building interactive elearning with PowerPoint will cost a lot more time and starts to get messy after a few slides.
• Interactions in PowerPoint Get Progressively More Complicated. Interactions are a combination of hyperlinks to slides. For example, a five tab interaction requires six slides: the main slide and one for each tab. Want to build something more complex, like an interactive scenario? Your slide count increases exponentially; and the structure and maintenance of the course gets overly complicated. Whatever money you think you’ve saved in software you’ve easily spent in authoring. And each subsequent project adds to the cost.

As I stated earlier and throughout this blog, PowerPoint’s a great multimedia application. But if you want to build interactive elearning courses, it’s not the best option. The truth is that you will be saving hundreds (if not thousands) of hours building elearning courses using a tool better suited for interactive elearning.

Of course, if you do freelance consulting and bill by the hour, then it makes sense to stick with PowerPoint. If you don’t, then it’s time to move beyond it for your interactive elearning. You won’t be sorry.

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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 e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

One way to engage learners and get passed locked navigation is to allow the users to explore content in the course. There’s many ways to leverage exploration in a course. For example, using the 3C model for branched decision-making (challenge, choices, and consequences), you could pose a challenge to the learner that requires them to research content to make an informed decision. In that case a simple interaction that allows them to explore content is a great way for them to collect information.

To help you out, I created an office exploration activity template that’s free for you to use.

Free E-Learning Interaction Example

Below is a published demo of the elearning interaction.

Click here to view the elearning interaction.

Free E-Learning Interaction Template

Here’s a link to the free elearning interaction template. It’s created in Storyline 2 and uses a 16×9 aspect ratio.

• Download the interaction template.
• Here’s a PowerPoint version of the free template.

Since the template uses a flat design, you can easily incorporate it with these existing free resources to create a more complete interactive elearning experience.

• Flat office templates and office assets
• Flat office template
• Flat desktop & computer with zoom effect
• Four section office exploration with tutorials
• Timeline-style flat interaction
• Interactive conversation
• New Hire Orientation with free assets
• Gamified template made with free flat icons
• Free flat icons useful for interactive assets
• Interactive bulletin board for collecting information

Hope you enjoy. Let me know if you use the free e-learning interaction template.

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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 e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

One of the big challenge in crafting a learning experience is figuring out how to engage the learners. This is especially true for a lot of corporate training that is compulsory and not always connected to performance expectations.

Today, we’ll review 5 ways to engage your learners and build a better learning experiences.

Engage Learners with Relevant Content

Engaged learners need content that is relevant to their needs. If it’s not, then they’re less apt to be motivated which leads to less engagement. It forces you have to do a lot more to increase their motivation and guide them through the content.

I discuss relevant content quite a bit throughout the blog and make it one of the key building blocks for interactive elearning.

Engage Learners with Just-in-Time Delivery

At a previous organization, we installed a new phone system. We had to train so many people on the new system that the first groups were trained months before the system rolled out. By the time the phones came online, a lot of what they learned was lost. That was OK, because we had some cheat sheets and quick tips that offered help for the most common tasks.

Instead of a big course delivered months in advance it would have been easier to build lighter modules (similar to the cheat sheets) that delivered the necessary content at the point of need. I like to call these micro-learning modules, coursels (as in course morsels).

With YouTube and similar media services, people are conditioned to search for what they need when they need it. Why can’t the online training follow suit? Focus less on sharing every piece of content and more on context; and then work towards making it easy to search and access bite-sized training at the point of need.

Engage Learners with the Look & Feel

Learners perceive a product as more usable than it may actually be if the design is aesthetically pleasing. This is known as the aesthetic-usability effect. It’s also possible that they may reject a product that is actually better because it may not be as aesthetically pleasing.

Even if you build basic courses, place a lot of focus on getting the right look and feel. There’s a visual context that works for your course as well as a way to create novel and engaging interactions. These don’t replace good instructional design, but they do contribute to the perception the learner has of the course and its value. And that’s critical to the initial engagement.

Engage Learners with Interactive Content

Most courses are linear with little, if any, interactive elements. That’s fine for consuming information. But it doesn’t make for engaging learning experiences. An easy way to engage learners is to add interactive elements to the course.

Generally, there are two facets to interactive elearning. The first is getting the learner to interact with onscreen elements. These interactions are clicking, mouseovers, dragging, and/or data entry. The second is getting the learner to process and interact with the content. Usually this involves some Socratic questions or more involved interactive, branched scenarios.

Engage Learners with Free Navigation

One of my pet peeves is locked navigation. We all know why it happens: the customer wants to make sure that the learner sees all of the information. Otherwise, how else would they learn it?

Obviously, this is a false assumption. People don’t learn just because you expose them to content. And making it mandatory to see content is not an appropriate way to assess knowledge.

Instead of locking content down, give them the freedom to access and explore the content. If you want them to learn more, provide a challenge that causes them to pull in the content and make decisions. This is a much better mechanism than you pushing it out to them.

If you want to ensure they have learned something, then instead of locking the navigation, lock the course at decision points. Give the learner freedom to move around the content and explore. However, for them to advance, provide decision-making scenarios that require an understanding of the content. This gives the learner more control and the course owner some assurance that the learners know the content.

There are many ways to implement these tips to create engaging and interactive learning. The key is to engage the learner and create an experience that is memorable and enjoyable as well as educational.

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