Free Images for Universal Symbols

Here is a set of 50 symbols that are used across the globe to help passengers and pedestrians. These could come in handy as you look for symbols/icons to use in your next online course.

Take a look at these Universal Symbols. (They are free to download and use.)

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Add Flash Activities to your next course.

How to Plan for Text Translation

I never thought about text expansion/contraction until I needed to have a course translated. Headings, titles, and buttons that worked fine in English suddenly ran out of space when getting translated.

When creating a course that will be in multiple languages you must plan upfront for the “room” that each language will need. Here is a great chart that gives some guidelines for text expansion/contraction.

(Thanks Globalization Group!)

What Colors Mean in Different Cultures

I like to have color themes for my courses. I carry the colors into my images, course skin, backgrounds, and marketing communications. At times we need to create courses for an international market.

Colors have different meanings across the world. Here is a great charts that helps us know what various colors mean in different cultures.
(Thanks Globalization Group!)

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Add pictures of people to your eLearning courses.

Tips for Audio in eLearning

Audio and narration are great ways to enhance e-Learning. We all know what a difference sound effects make when we watch a great action movie. Without it the movie would be terrible.

All too often we forget that eLearning can also have audio. Not just narration but also sound effects that emphasize and support the text/images/animations.

I met Sound80 for the first time the other day at a conference. They provided a great paper on “Best Practices in eLearning Audio“.

1. Keep it in focus
2. Sometimes silence really is golden
3. Make it real
4. Not all recordings are created equal
5. A picture is worth 1000 words.
6. Author!
7. Moving beyond narration
8. Money, Money, Money, MONEY!
9. Effective effects
10. Work with the best

Thanks to Sound80 for the information!

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Need people pictures for eLearning?

eLearning Must Look Good

We are shallow people! Let me explain why I say that….

The other day I was on an airplane and watched the person next to me “read” a magazine. He basically flipped quickly through the pages and stopped occasionally on a pretty picture and usually started flipping again. At one point he stopped and seemed to read a bit.

When we create eLearning we should remember that people don’t read…they scan!  We all do it. We quickly scan a page to see if there is any information that interests us. Then if that passes our “interest” test we might actually read a sentence and possibly the entire paragraph. Do we develop our eLearning with this in mind? Do we think that people will read all of our text? (Here’s the secret…they won’t.)

Our training must look good and capture the attention of our “shallow” learners. If we do that they may start to pay attention and read.

Here some things to think about when making your eLearning look good:
1. Color – Choose colors that work together. Your marketing department may have some swatches you can use. Focus on branding.
2. Skin – Make your course skin look fresh and up-to-date.
3. Pictures – Create images that tell a story. They could even replace some of your text. Don’t just use image placeholders.
4. Less text – Users aren’t reading it anyway so thin out the text.
5. Consistency – Make everything look like it belongs together. (Standards)
5. Interactions – Break up your content and make it engaging.
6. Fonts – They can add some style to your course just don’t go crazy.

Additional Resources:
Articulate (Tom) did an article on why looks matter.
e Learning Templates that look great and are branded.
Fresh Articulate Skins.

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Add People to Your eLearning

Need pictures of cutout people and narrators for your online course? Well, you’re in luck!  We just launched 30+ new series of business people.

Each pack:

• contains 75+ layouts
• is “clipped out” and ready to drop into your course
• has multiple layouts both looking at and away from the camera
• is high resolution allowing you to zoom in and still maintain quality

Using people in your course can really enhance the overall look and feel. Check out the eLearning People Pictures.

Using Video in eLearning

Video is really taking off in the eLearning world and can add to the effectiveness of content. However, when using video there are many things to think about.

Typical steps to get video into an online course:

1. Script the video on paper
2. Record (sound and audio)
3. Edit
4. Compress/Render
5. Insert into eLearning authoring tool
6. Place on server
7. Open up access to the learners

Each one of the steps above takes various technical skills.

A big challenge when using video is to keep a high-level of quality but not have the files size too big. There are various techniques that help when compressing and deploying video. Flash .swf and .flv (Flash Video) is a great way to overcome these issues.

I found an article that focuses on compression, security, and deployment and could help you deploy your eLearning videos.

The article below addresses a scenario where a company needs to train 1500 employees using a 30 minute video. They are worried about security and the quality of their video. They will also have many employees accessing the video at the same time. Limited bandwidth is a worry.

Article: “Deploying Online Courses with Video Content” (Syberworks)

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Use Flash? Check out these Flash interactions and eLearning game activities.

The Power of PowerPoint Master Slides in eLearning

Master slides in PowerPoint are very powerful and they are easier than ever to do with PPT 07. When using a rapid e-Learning authoring tools that runs off PowerPoint I always start with a template that uses master slides. (or I build one to use throughout the course.)

Why do I like master slides: Templates – You can create a bunch of master slides and then save it as a template.That allows you to chose from many different layouts with just one click. (see last image below.) Page Design – Create a different layout for each type of learning interaction. Build master slides with 1,2,3…. boxes, scenarios, title page, pre-quiz, course evaluation, etc. (see the example images below.) Consistent Layout – The text boxes and images for each layout are always in the same spot. It makes the presentation/course look clean and professional when things don’t “jump” around. Easy to Share – If you work with multiple designers it is easy to share the file so that everyone is using the same layouts. It’s Fast – Once you build some master slides it can really increase your design speed. You don’t have to “fiddle” with the layout of each page. Just click New Slide and choose a layout. Reusable – You can quickly select the master slides and make changes. These changes will be reflected on every slide/page that used that master slide. Quickly change fonts, text positions, colors, etc. Here are PowerPoint course templates and styles for eLearning that we’ve created. I hope that they speed up development and make your courses look great! Happy eLearning!

Handwritten Fonts – Where to Find Them

I’ve come across various posts lately about handwritten fonts and they can be a great addition to an online course.

Examples of handwritten fonts being used:

Here are some free Handwritten Fonts:

• Articulate
• Da Font
• TripWire Magazine
• Instant Shift

Great Post: Tom and the Rapid eLearning Blog on when to use handwritten fonts.

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Checkout PowerPoint backgrounds for your eLearning courses.

Articulate Tip – Lock the Browser Size

Have you ever published your Articulate course and the images and flash are fuzzy and look terrible? Well, if so it might be caused by your course content resizing in the browser.

There is a setting within each Player Template in Articulate Presenter that allows your to either allow the course to expand/shrink as the user’s browser window changes size or to lock the content as the “optimal” size. If you don’t lock the presentation then if your user has a large browser window your images/flash might look as though they’ve be “zoomed in”. They could start to get that pixelated look.

Here’s how to lock your presentation size in Articulate Presenter:

1. Click Publish

2. Open the Player Template (the button with 3 dots to the right of the Player Template drop-down)

3. Click the Other tab and choose Lock presenation at optimal size.

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Articulate eLearning games and interactive flash templates that you can insert into PowerPoint and Articulate.

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