A couple of weeks ago, David posted a challenge where community members were asked to share their storyboard templates. As you can see, there were quite a few different storyboard templates shared for downloads. There are also additional free storyboards in the community downloads section.

What I found interesting was some of the conversation about storyboards. There are quite a few who don’t use formal storyboards. Instead they just build everything from inside their authoring tool.

Why There’s No Need for a Storyboard

Years ago when I first started working with e-learning, storyboards were really important. That’s mostly because it wasn’t just me working on the course.

The storyboard was how we determined how to construct the screen layouts and user interface. We determined where things were placed, how they animated, and what supporting media was required. Because more than one person worked on the course, the storyboard was really critical to communicate on the project design.

On top of that, working with customers and getting them to “see” what we were building was a challenge because it wasn’t as easy and quick to prototype the courses back then. Thus, we used the storyboard to walk through the course design with out clients.

This helped them understand what we were going to produce and get their agreement. It was also an easy way to show what other assets were required and the extra production required to deliver the course.

Rapid E-Learning Changed Things

A lot of this changed when we shifted from custom development in Flash and Authorware to Articulate Studio and PowerPoint. PowerPoint let me add all of the assets (or placeholders) and build animations quickly. Because I could prototype quickly in PowerPoint, I found I spent a lot less time working with formal storyboards. I suspect that’s common for many of you as well.

And it’s only easier with Storyline because there’s so much more interactive capability and one could build a quick prototype faster than it probably takes to complete a formal storyboard.

If you’re a team of one doing most of the production yourself, then a formal storyboard is less likely. Essentially, the prototype course really is a storyboard. It’s just in the authoring tool and not a separate document.

When a Storyboard Makes Sense

Throwing a bunch of slides and quiz together and calling it a course is one thing. In that world, what does a storyboard solve? However, when you start to build more complex learning experiences, you need to be more intentional about what you design. That requires a lot more planning. And most likely there’s a lot more media production.

In those cases, working with a storyboard helps you properly plan the course structure as well as the required content and media.

Also, when working with a clients (especially paying clients) it’s important to show them you’re organized. And a storyboard helps you walk through the project requirements before spending a lot of time prototyping and working on more time-consuming interactions.

There’s obviously a lot more that can be said about storyboarding. I find that people who’ve been in the industry a while, use storyboards more often than not. But people who’ve joined the industry over the past three years or so, don’t rely on them as much. Which makes sense, because the tools are so much easier to use.

I’m curious. Do you storyboard your courses? If so, how are you doing it? If not, why not?

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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.

There are a lot of free graphics files available online. Many of the free graphics are illustrations that are .EPS or .SVG files. The challenge is editing those files to suit your own needs.

If you already own a graphics program, then you can edit the files with no problems. If you don’t, then you have to look for other options.

Photopea is a free app where you can edit graphics files online. It’s fairly easy-to-use and includes a standard graphic’s editing user interface. I’ve included two quick tutorials to feature a few of thing things I like about the free application.

How to Edit EPS & SVG for Free

Click here to view the tutorial on YouTube.

Here’s how to upload and edit a .EPS file. Working with the .SVG files is generally the same.

How to Convert Bitmap Illustrations to Vector for Free

Click here to view the tutorial on YouTube.

Here’s how to convert a bitmap illustration to a vector for easier editing.

This is a great application for doing some simple edits of your graphics. The price is especially great if you don’t have your own graphics editor. If you want to learn more, you can check out their learning resources here.

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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.

Many of you know I’m a big fan of the e-learning challenges posted each week in the community. The intent is to get you to think about different ways to see the tools, be inspired by other examples, and practice using the software to learn new production tips.

I am always impressed with the diverse ideas that are demonstrated each week by both experienced and novice developers. On occasion I like to feature specific participants because they do really nice work and offer some creative ideas.

Today, I’d like to feature Andrzej Jabłoński. He really comes up with some interesting ideas and he often shares the files so that you can learn how he created what he did. This is the spirit of community in action. Here are a few of his recent challenge entries.

E-Learning Example: Leadership Template

This is one of my favorite demos in all of the challenges. There’s an elegance to the template structure and playfulness with the subtle animations. And yet, because he started with an existing graphic, it’s relatively easy to build something similar, especially for the person with minimal graphic design skills who has to work with stock imagery.

• View demo
• Download file

E-Learning Example: Paper Cutout Effect

I love the visuals in this one and the depth created with the paper cutout look. He always does a nice job with the animations in his demo and this one features some moving next buttons and bring content in and out of the screen.

• View demo

E-Learning Example: Meet the Team Interaction

Great use of the flashcard effect with really nice animations. There are a lot of interesting production tips to glean from this demo.

• View demo
• Download file

E-Learning Example: Space Game Navigation

This mimics an older arcade style game. This is a great demo to deconstruct so you can learn more about working with keyboard-based navigation. And there’s an off/on audio toggle.

• View demo
• Download file [developer mode]

E-Learning Example: Miscellaneous

Scenario Ideas

• Office
• Slider conversation

Exploration Activities

These are great activities to build familiarity with content, especially imagery or terms. They’re simple game activities, but can be sued effectively in many e-learning course contexts.

• Word Search [download]
• Accordion interaction 
• Start a Fire
• Vertical infographic style

Andrzej is just one of the many talented e-learning developers who regularly participate in e-learning challenges. I’ll feature more in the future.

Hopefully, you’ll be inspired to participate and share some of your own ideas. If not, at least make it a point to check them out each week to see what people share. And take advantage of the free tips and downloads that you can use to learn and build your own courses.

Are there any recent challenge entries you’ve enjoyed?

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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.

We all want to give proper credit to our sources when presenting content. Many of us learned to cite our sources when writing reports for school work or research papers. But does it work the same way for an e-learning course?

I had a great question from a blog reader last week:

I am a relatively new instructional designer, but I was an English teacher for nearly 20 years. When I started my new job, I found that other designers and trainers in my company were just quoting and copying resources without stating where the information came from and this really rubbed me the wrong way.

What are some best practices regarding how to cite sources for e-learning? Is there any guidance out there for something like this? It is a bit weird to stop in the middle of a scenario or game to state where the info originated, but attaching a bibliography in a resource tab seems a bit unclear.

I’d appreciate any thoughts you have. 

Credit for Free Assets

I wrote a blog post a while back that dealt with how to credit the source of free assets we find online. We covered a few different ways to give credit to the sources. I assume the mechanics of displaying content on the screen is similar. But that’s still different than citing sources of the content.

Click here to view the demo.

Citing Sources for Web Pages

There are a number of places that explain how to cite online sources and some even provide a way to create the citations. But again, a lot of that focuses on research and isn’t specific to an online course.

• Bibme.org has you covered for APA, MLA, and Chicago.
• Citation Machine also provides similar resources.

Big Question: Citation for E-Learning

Creating an e-learning course is different than writing a research paper. And an e-learning course is different than a web site. Is there a different way to do this? I’ll throw the question out to the community and see if we can glean some best practices.

What do YOU do (if anything) when citing sources in your e-learning courses?

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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.

Here’s an issue I run into quite a bit: I need a map for my e-learning courses; but I don’t need a detailed map.

Stock image sites are fine for generic illustrated maps but they’re usually too generic. The other option is to do a screen grab of an online map, but then that’s often too detailed.

Recently, I was working on a map demo where I needed a specific map, but I didn’t want a real map screen shot because it was too busy and I knew the stock sites couldn’t provide what I needed because it was too specific. Fortunately, I found this site, Snazzy Maps, that makes it easy to customize Google’s online maps.

Examples of Custom Maps for E-Learning

Here’s why this comes in handy.

Most maps have too much visual information. For example, if I built a labeled graphic map of some historic sites in Washington, D.C. I need a simple map for reference, but I don’t need all of the street names and colors that may distract from my labels. Instead I want a map that gives me some context, but allows the label to be the star of the show.

In the example above, the real online map has way too much visual info. It’s hard to know where to look first. In fact, it’s difficult to see the markers because of all of the colors, text, and roads. I’m not using this map to drive an Uber so I probably don’t need all of the detail and distracting visual information.

This next example above is the complete opposite. All of the colors are turned off as well as many of the roads. A gray scale map like this allows the accent colors from the labels to really pop. In fact, one of the best simple tips for course design is to get rid of competing visual information like colors and then only use color to accent or highlight content. In this example, the marker colors are much more distinct.

For this particular interaction, I like having a little color to show the park and monuments in relationship to the city and water. I turned off the titles and some of the roads. You can still recognize it as a map, yet it’s not quite as busy.

Customizing the Maps

To be honest, I don’t have the patience to learn how to use the Snazzy Map site. So I started with one of the maps someone with more patience created. And from there it was just a lot of clicking around to see what I can edit. Most of it makes sense and with a little practice you can get almost any look you need.

If you need a custom map for your e-learning courses, check out the site. It may come in handy.

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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.

We all like to see good e-learning examples. That’s one reason I really enjoy the e-learning challenges. They’re little nuggets of creativity. They’re usually not full-fledged courses, but they often have some interesting elements.

In a recent challenge on course starter templates for leadership training, community member, Andrzej Jabłoński, shared a really nice example. Check it out below.

Click here to view the demo.

Here’s what stood out:

• The visual design is fun and clean. I think often our e-learning courses look too formal or corporatey (if that’s a word). We think because it’s a serious topic that the visuals need to look serious. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. I like this design because it doesn’t look like a typical corporate course. Yet it’s professional and engaging.

• The subtle animations work well. They get your attention, but they’re not gratuitous. Break down the course and look at how he used the animations.
• Leverages existing illustrations. He used an image from freepik to create the visual elements for his demo. As he says, “I mainly work on redesigning and adjusting images for my projects. It’s also a good way to learn how to design when you have to work on ready-made elements. I often try to add something more from myself to develop graphic skills.”
• Andrzej also shared the source file so you can open it up to see how he created the animated effects and other slides. You can find it in the recap post.

Look at what he did, find an image, and see what you can do to apply similar effects for your own template design.

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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.

Animated .gifs are great for e-learning. Often, I like to use them instead of videos for e-learning interactions, especially process interactions that go through a sequence of steps.

Here are a few previous posts on animated .gifs with some free resources:

• 3 Reasons to Use Animated GIFs in E-learning
• How to Make Animated Gifs from Video
• Here Are Some Free Animated Gifs
• How to Create Animated .GIFs for Free

Today I’ll show a simple way to convert a video of a process into smaller animated .gifs that you can insert into a slide, article, or process interaction.

Demo of the Animated Gifs in a Process Interaction

Here’s a demo I created using Rise and the Process Interaction.

Click here to view the example.

Animated Gifs Tutorials

Below are a couple of tutorials that go into it in more detail:

• How to cut the video into smaller parts using the free video editor in Windows 10.
• How to import and convert the video into an animated .gif.

Animated Gifs: Create a Procedural Video

Record a video of the process. Don’t worry about the audio as it will be removed. To keep the edits to a minimum, make sure to be clear on the steps and to not waste a lot of movement. Get to the point quickly.

At our workshop in Milan, David and I quickly recorded the process to make an espresso with the machine in the back of the room. While we pretended to be working, it was really a way for us to sneak in a few more shots of espresso.

Here’s the original video.

Click to play the video on YouTube.

Animated Gifs: Convert the Video to Gif

There are a number of ways to convert video to animated .gifs. I like to use ScreenToGif because it’s free (which is always good) and it is really easy to use.

The conversion process is simple: import the video and convert it. However, there are some key considerations.

The original .MP4 video is 159 MB at 1920 x 1080 resolution. Animated .gifs can be large, really large.  Without any significant edits, the 159 MB video becomes a 470 MB animated .gif. That’s just not manageable.

There are a few things you can do to decrease the file size of the animated .gifs:

• Scale the video down from it’s original resolution. There’s no need for an HD quality .gif. In this case 1920 x 1080 will be sized down to 500 x 281.
• Crop the video to just the critical pieces of info. The fewer frames the smaller the file size. You can always duplicate frames to keep something on screen longer with minimal impact to size.
• The less difference there is with the pixels from one frame to the next, the smaller the file will be. Unfortunately, video isn’t static and those millions of pixels are changing from frame to frame. You could try to shoot against a solid background and with a tripod. That may help, depending on your subject.
• Video runs at about 30 frames per second (FPS). When you convert the video to .gif, you can modify the frame rate to something like 10 to 15. It just depends on how much motion is in the video. The less motion, the more you can lower the frame rate.

Animated Gifs: Edit to Individual Steps

Unless the steps are very short and can be shown in one file, it makes sense to break the steps up to individual parts. That helps reduce the file size and keeps the focus on very specific parts of the process.

• You can import the entire video and then cut it down. Or cut the video into smaller videos first and work with them individually. It’s probably easier to edit the videos first and then import the smaller videos. This is more manageable and less strain on your system.
• Get rid of what you don’t need, cut out extra frames.
• The animated .gifs loop, so it may make sense to add a little buffer at the front or back end to let the user orient to the start and end of the process.

The original video was 1 minute long. Converted to an animated .gif without edits, it was 470 MB. After cutting it into pieces and creating four smaller gifs, the total ended up being about 15 MB. That’s a pretty significant difference and the output works well for the demo.

That’s basically it, shoot a video and then convert it to animated gif.

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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.

Recently, we explored how to manage the working relationship with subject matter experts. One of the key components is curating all of the existing resources. Here’s a free handout to help guide the conversation with subject matter experts and clients so that you get all of the resources you need to build the best courses possible.

• Download the free subject matter expert checklist here.

What you need to curate is part of three core groups: existing training content, additional resources, and media assets.

Subject Matter Expert Checklist: Collect Existing Training Material

Make sure to get all of the existing training material. You’ll also need to figure out what to keep and what to discard. At some point you want to archive older material so there’s no conflict later when you need to update the course content.

Subject Matter Expert Checklist: Identify Additional Resources

There are all sorts of supporting resources such as product documentation, procedural manuals, and company policies. Not only do you want to identify what’s available, you want to make sure it’s up-to-date (get rid do old content), and find ways to integrate searching for and using the resources.

Subject Matter Expert Checklist: Pull Together All Media & Visual Assets

The organization often has branding requirements that may include imagery, colors, and typography. You need those. You also need any images, videos, audio, and whatever other media exists to support the training. If none’s available, make a list of what you need.

Often you can find relevant assets in marketing collateral, web sites, or shareholder annual reports.

This checklist is a great way to collect what you need and also help steer some of the conversation you’ll have with your subject matter experts and content owners.

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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.

Subject matter experts often play a key role in the development of your e-learning courses. We’ve covered this quite a bit in previous posts and in a free e-book available to you through the e-learning community. You can find the links below.

A couple of weeks ago I did a workshop where we discussed working with subject matter experts and my computer crashed. Since I had to do the presentation again, I wanted to simplify the key points just in case I didn’t have the presentation file, so I came up with the three R’s when working with subject matter experts: relationship, role, and resources.

Establish the Relationship with Your Subject Matter Experts

• Be prepared and respect their time. Often, they’re not as vested in the success of the project as you are.
• Pull together a list of questions for them to review. Don’t give them 200 questions. Start with top five to ten questions so it’s manageable.
• Get them to share their ideas about how they’d approach the training. You want to understand how they see things so you can anticipate potential conflicts.
• Ask lots of questions and don’t make assumptions.

Define the Subject Matter Expert’s Role

• You’re trying to get them to help you build an effective course. Use a backwards design to get them to think like instructional designers. What’s the appropriate action that demonstrates success? How do you measure that action? What do they need to practice to be successful? What information do they need to practice? The point is stepping away from information and focusing on actionable performance.
• Establish clear expectations built around the project’s objectives. Who does what and when? What is does the subject matter expert deliver. What are their action items? Come to a documented agreement. Don’t schedule meetings with them unless there’s an action item.
• Who is the final reviewer of the content and course? Is the subject matter expert the one who signs off on the course? Or is there someone else? Get that person involved at the forefront.

What Resources Can the Subject Matter Provide?

• What existing training content exists?
• Have the subject matter expert provide assessment questions and viable choices (or the framework for viable scenarios).
• Identify supporting resources such as articles, intranet content, policies, etc.
• Who will collect the metrics to track before and after accomplishments?

Obviously, there’s a lot more to working with the subject matter experts when building e-learning courses. Most of that is covered in the resources below. However, if you lean on the three R’s you’ll remember to cover the basics: maintain a good relationship, establish clarity around the role and expectations, and collect the appropriate resources.

Free Checklist

Here’s a free checklist to help curate all of the appropriate content and resources.

Rapid E-Learning Blog Resources

Here is a list of relevant blog posts.

• How Subject Matter Experts Help Build Great Courses
• How to Build a Great Relationship with Your Subject Matter Experts
• How to Set Expectations with Your Subject Matter Experts
• How to Get the Most Out of Your Subject Matter Experts
• Here’s How to Help Your Subject Matter Experts Build Better E-Learning Courses
• What Everyone Should Know About Working with Subject Matter Experts
• Myth 3: A Rapid E-Learning Tool in The Hands of Subject Matter Experts Is Not Good!
• How to Overcome the Challenge of Working with Subject Matter Experts

Free E-Book

Here is a free e-book with all sorts of tips to know when working with subject matter experts.

• Essential Guide to Working with Subject Matter Experts (free e-book)

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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.

Even before I started working at Articulate, I made it a goal to answer five questions each week in the e-learning community. It’s a great way to connect with others, especially beginners, and offer some help as they’re learning.

However, for me, it’s a great way to stay on top of the tools as it forces me to think through the software in different contexts. It enables me to play around with different ideas and production techniques.

Here are three recent tutorials that I created to answer some questions in the community. The tutorials offer little bonus tips and focus on some production nuances that aren’t always apparent to new users. They’re good if you’re just getting started.

Here are the three files I used for the demos in case you want to look at them and follow along.

• Download here (3 MB)

E-Learning Tip: Simulate Right-Click Interactions on Mobile Devices

In this tutorial, we review how to go through software training on a mobile device when the software simulation requires the user to right-click which isn’t possible on a mobile device.

Features demonstrated:

• Setting True-False variables to indicate if the user is on a mobile device
• Use variables to simulate right-clicking
• Showing/hiding objects based on variable values

Click here to view the tutorial on YouTube.

E-Learning Tip: Combine Animations to Create Fast-Slow-Fast Animations

In this example, the question was how to make an object slow down when passing through another object and then speed up when it was done passing through.

Click here to view the tutorial on YouTube.

Features demonstrated:

• Create motion paths
• Set options
• Apply relative start points
• Relative animation
• Alignment

E-Learning Tip: How to Keep Objects Persistent and as the Top Layer

In this tutorial, we look at how to ensure that the custom course navigation is always on the top layer and not hidden when going to other layers.

Features demonstrated:

• Launch layer based on timeline
• Create persistent layers on top of other layers
• Use empty layers to trigger and redirect

Click here to view the tutorial on YouTube.

I usually do 5-10 of these tutorials every week. If they interest you and you want to see more, let me know.

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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.

I built a simple sorting interaction to show how to work with sliders and variables for a workshop. It’s a fun and simple interaction so I cleaned out the data and made it so it can work as a template. It’s yours to use as you wish.

Click here to view the demo.

• Download the template here.

Tutorial: Interactive Sort Activity

Here’s a YouTube tutorial that walks through the template and explains how to customize it.

A few things you’ll learn:

• Customizing the slider
• Animation-based triggers
• How to customize the sorting activity

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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.

Most e-learning courses have some sort of positive and negative feedback. And often we use symbols like a check or X mark to indicate good or bad.

Why not use emojis?

In a previous post, I explained when to use emojis for e-learning and three ways to insert them into your courses.

Create Free Emojis

Here’s a site where you can create free custom emojis. The site is easy to use and you can create all sorts of fun emojis to provide feedback in your courses.

Here’s quick tutorial that shows how to use the free emoji site. And here are a couple of silly examples where I use the free emojis as a way to offer hints on a slide and as a way to provide right and wrong feedback.

Click here to view the demo.

Of course the example above is silly, but you could find more creative and appropriate ways to use these free assets in your e-learning content, especially if working with a younger audience. Since the image files you get are the same dimensions, they’re perfect for buttons with various states.

If you did create some free emojis, how would you use them in your courses?

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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.