Portfolio: Pet Jeopardy (like) Game
December 31, 2009
This Jeopardy (like) game was developed for one of our “hairiest” clients of the year. Petomundo.com was great to work with and we had a lot of fun developing this Flash game for them. The game was a customization of one of our eLearning templates. We added Randomization to the questions, changed the game characters to dogs, and wrapped the game up with a custom dog house frame.
Go ahead and give the game a whirl. Play the game
Awesome Games and Interactions for Articulate Presenter
December 22, 2009
If you’ve been coming to this site for awhile you probably know that we build a lot of custom flash games/quizzes/interactions for eLearning developers. I want to take a moment and focus on how the templates work with Articulate.
Each of the games is created in Flash and has scoring and looks amazing. A learner answers various questions and gets feedback and a running score. Every game comes with the .fla file so that you can customize everything until your heart is content.
However, if you don’t know flash very well, that’s ok. All you have to do is insert your question text into the movie clips in the library. (a tutorial is included with every .fla and there are videos on our template tutorial site.
There are 8 games available right now:
Articulate Presenter Games (Jeopardy, Millionaire, Pyramid, Golf, Spy Game, Board Game, Soccer, Bootcamp)
Ever wish that you have tons of interactive page layouts just ready and waiting? Now you can! We’ve created 4 different designs of interactive flash layouts. Pages with tabs and sections, scenarios, drag and drops, flash cards, quizzes, and more! Each set has over 30 interactive layouts.
All you need to do is add your text to the text movieclip in flash and publish. Here are some samples:
Using Templates and Games in Articulate Presenter
Here are the steps to use these flash templates in Articulate:
1. Add the text that you want to see in your game/interaction to the appropriate movieclip in Flash.
2. Publish the flash movie as .swf
3. In PowerPoint go to Articulate / Flash Movie
4. Select your .swf
5. From the Insert Flash Movie window choose these settings:
- Display in slide
- Advance to next slide “When user clicks next”
- Movie plays independently of slide
6. Click OK
That’s it.
Bonus – eLearning PowerPoint Backgrounds
There are also PPT backgrounds available that have over 80 different layouts. We also provide a PPT master template file that you can use to speed up the development process.
(Check out amazing eLearning Games, Flash Interactions, PowerPoint Backgrounds, and eLearning Templates)
Training Prison! (Can we free them?)
December 22, 2009
The other morning I was sitting in the office and got a text message from a friend. Basically it said, “I’m in class right now…dieing of boredom.” (This was at about 8:45am) Another text later said, “It’s a tax class. Even worse there is someone from the IRS speaking.”
This was mandatory training and he had to be there all day. He had zero motivation and zero desire to attend. I’d call him a “Training Prisoner”.
We’ve all seen training prisoners or maybe even been one ourselves. They sit in class, arms folded, with a constant look of disgust. They are checked out and possibly even negative. So…how do we as training professionals help? There will always be some training that is mandatory and some participants may have a negative attitude to all courses.
Here are a few things that might help:
Start with a Bang! – What activity could be done “right off the bat” to add excitement? What could be done to help participants understand the importance? Is there some type of competition or challenge? (introductions don’t always have to be the first item on a class agenda.)
Engage Participants – Nobody wants to sit and listen all day. (Even a training prisoner would like to move around a bit.) What types of group activities, field trips, games, role-plays, videos, etc. could we do? What about asking for personal stories that relate to certain topics. Most people like to talk about themselves 
Upfront Communication – How was the course announced? Was it announced in a way that made it seem mandatory or was it a perk/personal development? This initial communication can make or break a course. The course should be portrayed as an opportunity to grow and learn. A chance to get away and be with fellow colleagues (network).
Time Commitment – Make the course as short as possible. People as busy and if they are not at their desk things are not getting done.
In the end if a participant isn’t motivated, he/she won’t learn anything. The training course for that person was a waste of time. What else could be done to help?
From ASTD LinkedIn discussion
Steve Klubertanz:
“Pay very close attention during student introductions at the beginning of class. It’s there you can learn a lot about what they truly want from the session, even if they were forced to attend.”
“I have observed people’s negative outlooks disappear just by acknowledging their feelings and reassuring them that I understand their position.”
(View our eLearning Games, Flash Interactions, PowerPoint Backgrounds, and eLearning Templates)
Portfolio: Pet Pyramid Game
December 21, 2009
This Pyramid Challenge game was developed for one of our “hairiest” clients of the year. Petomundo.com was great to work with and we had a lot of fun developing this Flash game for them. The game was a customization of one of our eLearning templates. We added Randomization to the questions, changed the game characters to dogs, and wrapped the game up with a custom dog hair frame.
Go ahead and give the game a whirl. Play the game
Really…Were These the Best Images We Could Find?
December 17, 2009
JOIN THE CRUSADE…NO MORE CHEESY, ANIMATED CLIPART!
How many times have you seen images like these?
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Images are an important part of online courses. The trick is that the images we use must enhance the instructional qualities of the content. The images must also look professional and give the learner confidence that the material is accurate. The images above do not look professional and certainly do not give me a feeling that I can trust the course content.
| So what types of images could we use? |
| Photos – Photographs are great because they are real. They don’t look cheesy and they aren’t animated. If you’d like to use a guide in your course why not take pictures of a colleague or friend? You could have them do multiple poses and then cut out the background in Photoshop. Make sure that you use a high enough quality setting so that you can have full screen images that look crisp. |
| There are tons of stock photography sites online. iStockphoto is great and lets you just buy the images that you want. You could also purchase access to large libraries that let you use as many as you’d like. I’ve used Photos.com and liked the selection. |
| Graphics – There are times when you want to design your own graphic. There are several different ideas here: |
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| Icons – Every course should have a set of icons. Icons can be standardized and used in multiple courses. These icons give the user direction and add functionality to the course. Also, as the same icons are used over and over, the user begins to quickly recognize and understand them. Here are a few parts/functions of a course that could have corresponding icons: |
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| To wrap it all up images should enhance the course content. They should not just be gratuitous graphics that mean nothing. And above all…cheesy, animated gifs have no place in a course. They scream “Novice” and there are so many better options out there. |
| Related Articles: Brand online training Adding Reflections to Graphics Spice up eLearning page layouts Stylize Flash Images (Check out amazing eLearning Games, Flash Interactions, PowerPoint Backgrounds, and eLearning Templates) |
Free eLearning Storyboards
December 15, 2009
I ran across free storyboard templates on TheELearningCoach.com and thought that I share them with you. Connie has created a Storyboard Depot:
“These storyboard templates have been donated by the eLearning community for you to download and use for projects. There are a variety of types so you can pull features from one and add them to another, for hours of safe, unsupervised fun.”
There are PowerPoint and Word versions and they come in many different styles. Check it out!
Thanks Connie!
Here are some great eLearning games and templates.
Portfolio: Web Product Ordering Course
December 13, 2009
This quick course is a guided tour (also a marketing piece) that shows how to order supplies from the customer’s portal. It begins with a brief company introduction and then tours the product portal.
eLearning Templates Biggest Bundle
December 9, 2009
$1500 (Sells separately for $2,670)
8 Flash games, 2 PPT eLearning course style themes AND more than 60 Flash interactions included in this bundle!
These are PPT and Flash based templates that are super easy to update. Each template is fully customizable in Flash (we give you the .fla Flash source file). All you have to do is open Flash, paste your text, publish, and insert into your favorite eLearning Development tool. Made to work within most rapid elearning software (Articulate Presenter, Adobe Captivate, Rapid Intake, Adobe Presenter, PowerPoint and more).
BONUS: Reuse the templates over and over again in multiple courses…or even other websites and presentations.
What’s Included:
- Millionaire Challenge
- GameShow Challenge
- Golf Challenge
- Boardgame Challenge
- Bootcamp Challenge
- Pyramid Challenge
- Spy Challenge
- Shootout Challenge
- Interaction Pack: Clean Corporate (30+ Interactions)
- Interaction Pack: Pulsing Dots (30+ Interactions)
- PPT Course Style Theme: Billboard (80+ files)
- PPT Course Style Theme: Paper & Folders (80+ files)
Specs:
- Files included: fla, psd, ppt, pptx, jpg, swf
- Requirements: Flash 8 or newer (CS, CS2, CS3, CS4)
- Flash Player 8 or newer
- Output size: Final .swf around only 50 KB each
- Output dimensions: 720×540
- Actionscript 2.0
Demos:
Click each of the screenshots below to demo a few of the games and interactions included.
PPT course style samples (just a few)
Games
Testimonials:
“I’m really impressed by the professional build up of your templates, so that even an non programmer like me can make the changes in an easy way. Your templates are really excellent add-ons to the Articulate software I am using.” ~ Peter M.
“I just built the Gameboard one for a course we offer, it is fantastic! These are so easy to work with and I am a Flash hater…we will definitely be integrating these into our Articulate courses.” ~ Laurel S.
“Your template is swimmingly easy – the tutorials were very helpful.” ~ Rich V.
Tutorials:
We have an entire website dedicated for tutorials to assist you in customizing these templates.
Is Classroom Training More Credible than Online Training?
December 9, 2009
Recently at a round-table discussion about eLearning in the Commercial Lending industry an interesting point surfaced periodically: “Why is classroom training perceived as being more credible than online training?”
I think that this varies a bit by industry (and commercial banking is not known to be pioneers in the latest technology) but many people believe that classroom training is the “best way”. E-Learning is acceptable as a “second-best” option but will not work as well as a classroom session. In fact the only reason why they may “settle” for an online solution is to save time and money.
Why does this perception exist?
Here are a few perceptions of Classroom training that might lead someone to think that it’s more credible (allow they might not be correct):
- Paying for Flights and Meals: It can get expensive to bring participants into a classroom. Maybe this is seen as a vote of confidence in the classroom because a company is willing to spend money and time to bring employees in. Showing that they are willing to put out $$ may portray to employees that it’s important.
- That’s how I Learned: Classroom sessions are how most people learned when they got their university degree. Online schools and degrees have not typically the same weight/prestige as traditional universities.
- I’m Present in a Room: Participants are sitting in a room and I can see them. It must be better than them staring at a computer somewhere.
- Yes…They Were There: A trainer can certify that a person actually arrived. Yes they had buns in a seat.
- The Message Was Delivered: Management can ensure that a person stood up and told everyone what needed to be said.
- Comments and Discussions: Participants have the opportunity to personally see and discuss topics with others. They can network and connect faces and names.
- Online Training is Just Reading: Unfortunately some online courses are bad…they just put pages in an interface and let participants read. This was especially true in 5-8 years ago. Some people have never had a good learning experience with a true online course and don’t know the potential.
In the early days of eLearning it seemed that the goal was just to recreate the classroom in an electronic format. That is no longer the case. I think that the attempt now is to use the strengths of both.
Overall, my round-table discussion ended with a consensus that blended learning could really be the best of both worlds. Both online and classroom have inherent strengths and can complement each other in many ways.
What do you think? Is classroom training perceived as more credible and superior in your organization? Why or why not?
UPDATE:
Discussion points from Training and Development LinkedIn Group:
“There could be a couple of reasons -
- More engagement and feedback mechanismThere is more experiential learning atmosphere
- The question asked and the answers discussed could open up a lot of perspectives
- There is more of the human connect, considering the fact that we are after all,flesh and blood of emotions
- Online learning is too straight jacketed” – Dewalker Basnet
Point from Learning, Eduction, and Training Professionals LinkedIn Group:
“Bad training will always lack credibility while good training will always add value.
Whether it is delivered face to face or online is irrelevant……that is only the medium. I am assuming that professional trainers will choose the appropriate method.
Too many people are getting hooked up with the approach and they lose focus on the objectives, how to measure effectiveness, keeping learning pragmatic amongst other things.” – Tony Park
Point from eLearn LinkedIn Group:
“Some of the arguments that classroom experience is far better is the ability to cross communicate in the classroom. I have found that if you present a problem or issue and engage the classroom in a groupthink experiment, you engage the students to come up with innovative and creative ideas. This in turn engages the attention span of a student in the classroom.” – Jason Miller
“Classroom learning is given more credibility than on-line/distance learning. I believe that the reason includes the greater impact information makes on the learner when more senses are involved in the learning process. In a classroom, learners have the opportunity to use tactile as well as clear visual and auditory stimulation. Discussions are more easily and naturally facilitated. Visuals and audio on line are fed through a medium which tends to “dull” them, somewhat like watching a play through a window. Tactile stimulation is not readily available.” – Caroline Silver
(Check out amazing eLearning Games, Flash Interactions, PowerPoint Backgrounds, and eLearning Templates)
eLearning Templates Bigger Bundle
December 8, 2009
$1000 (Sells separately for $1,250)
8 Flash games AND over 30 Flash interactions included in this bundle!
These are Flash based templates that are super easy to update. Each template is fully customizable in Flash (we give you the .fla Flash source file). Just open Flash, paste your text, publish, and insert into your favorite eLearning development tool. Made to work within most rapid elearning software (Articulate Presenter, Adobe Captivate, Rapid Intake, Adobe Presenter, PowerPoint and more).
BONUS: Reuse the templates over and over again in multiple courses…or even other websites and presentations.
Specs:
Files included: .Fla and .swf
Requirements: Flash 8 or newer (CS, CS2, CS3, CS4)
Flash Player 8 or newer
Output size: Final .swf around only 50 KB each
Output dimensions: 720×540
Actionscript 2.0
Demos:
Click each of the screenshots below to demo a few of the games and interactions included.
Testimonials:
“I’m really impressed by the professional build up of your templates, so that even an non programmer like me can make the changes in an easy way. Your templates are really excellent add-ons to the Articulate software I am using.” ~ Peter M.
“I just built the Gameboard one for a course we offer, it is fantastic! These are so easy to work with and I am a Flash hater…we will definitely be integrating these into our Articulate courses.” ~ Laurel S.
“Your template is swimmingly easy – the tutorials were very helpful.” ~ Rich V.
Tutorials:
We have an entire website dedicated for tutorials to assist you in customizing these templates.
