Guru Honorable Mention: Golf Match Play by Heather Steckley

This post by Articulate Community Manager Jeanette Brooks features one of the Honorable Mentions from the 2010 Articulate Guru Awards. To see other award-winning courses from the Guru Awards, check out the posts here.

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Articulate user Heather Steckley is giving new meaning to the phrase “awesome golf course.” But hers isn’t the kind of golf course with a fairway and a putting green — instead, it’s a course of the e-learning kind, and it teaches learners about golf scoring and etiquette. The course won an Honorable Mention in the 2010 Articulate Guru Awards.

Heather is a senior curriculum developer at Corepoint Health in Texas, but this project was something she did outside of her normal work. It’s part of a series she built for the Executive Women’s Golf Association in Dallas. Take a look:

View the Golf Match Play Course

What caught the judge’s eyes? The judges liked the way the course uses realistic examples and straightforward, easy-to-understand visuals and narration. Heather also provides the learner with several supplemental and interactive resources, through the use of web objects, hyperlinked choices, and an Engage FAQ interaction inserted as a player tab. Hidden slides and branching help guide learners to the right slides and sections at the right time. Judges also liked how Heather uses well-placed spotlight annotations and PowerPoint callouts to make it easy for the learner to follow along with the content.

Another nice touch is that Heather leverages creative animations that fit the theme:  a golf ball rolls into place on the start screen, a moving golf cart helps the learner transition from one section of the course to another, and a pencil marks the scorecard during the match play.

In this screencast, Heather explains some of the techniques she used in the course:

View this screencast at Screenr

Nice work, Heather! Congrats on winning an Articulate Guru Honorable Mention!