Adding Depth to Your Graphics in ELearning or Mobile Learning

When making graphics for your elearning or mobile learning module, adding 3-dimensional effects to your graphics can really help things pop off the page. This sort of design aesthetic can be found everywhere, even if it doesn’t call attention to itself right away. Drop shadows, gradient shading and textures all add an element of realism that will help your learner feel like there is physically a photo, a button or some other object in front of them, or that they are part of a real vignette. You can also use these techniques to call attention to specific parts of your image.

Drop Shadows

Adding drop shadows to objects in Illustrator is a pre-set effect you can apply to any shape. This gives the impression that your picture has a ‘thickness’ to it and is floating just a little above your page, depending on how far away you set the shadow.

Simply select the object you want to apply a drop shadow to, then select Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow and it will give you a pop-up that lets you adjust and customize the direction, size, blur and colour of the drop shadow. However, if you are starting with a raster image, you’ll have to make an identically shaped vector object underneath the layer your raster image is on to apply the drop shadow to.

Another way to make a drop shadow is to use the above method of making a similar shaped object and giving it a stroke with a gradient fill across the stroke. In the Swatches panel, select the Stroke, and then select the White, Black gradient from the Gradient panel. Set the white option to 0% opacity. Also in the Gradient panel, select the Apply Gradient Across Stroke option. This gives your shape a soft edge.

Cast Shadows

If you use the last option to create a shadow, you can take the spatial illusion a step farther by making the separate shadow object look like a shadow cast on the ‘ground’ away from the object.

Select the shadow object and select Free Transform from the Tools menu. Click and hold on the handle in the middle of the top of the shape to drag it around. On the left side you can also select the Perspective Distort, which will give you the option to shrink parts of the object that are ‘farther’ away from you. Then add the original object back in on top of the shadow.

If you’re not familiar with Illustrator, you can get started with our previous post on using the program – A Beginner’s Guide to Working With Vector Graphics for eLearning Modules

INCENTIVIZATION

WHAT IS IT?

Whenever you’re engaged in an activity, there’s always that one factor that brought you there and the one(s) that bring you back may be the same, or things that came out of the activity after you did it. What we aim for in any learning module or gamified example, is to balance those factors to create the ideal incentives for users. Those little things that capture their interest, cause them to learn something new, or even build on the knowledge they’ve gained from doing the lesson. There is a threshold, however, that we need to be mindful of.

WHY NOT?

Whenever there’s an incentive applied to something, it’s worth investigating the outcome of that to see whether the users are getting too much of a good thing. A popular incentive, in the context of games, is leaderboards. A place where the highest scores are put on display.

Looking to the positive side of this incentive is that users are encouraged to do their best to be at the top for bragging rights amongst their peers. This is something that can also produce the unintended effects of cheating, or focusing more on the performance of that particular session as opposed to learning any lessons.

WRAPPING UP

In most cases, however, users are presented with proper incentives because they’ve been proven to be effective. There are also many other examples of how you can give incentives that you can explore on your own and see their impacts.

If you would like to explore more about gamification, mobile learning and eLearning, take a peek at our company website: Pathways Training and eLearning, at http://www.pathwaystrainingandelearning.com/ . We always look for fresh ways to engage learners and to make the learning experience as fun as possible!

Mobile Learning – What Works and What Doesn’t!

3 Tips for Designing it Right and 3 Traps to Avoid

Mobile learning is the new buzz-word and although there seems to be a lot of talk about this new trend, few companies are actually doing it. As mobile learning is so new, there are a few things you need to consider in order to effectively instructional design for a mobile learning experience.  For those of you who are considering this new medium, here are some tips you need to consider when designing learning for mobile.

1. Design for touch and forget about the mouse – When you are designing for mobile devices, there can be no more hovering mouse overs for your learning activity. Design your learning activities with “tap” and “swipe” in mind and ensure your instructions for activities reflect this language also.
2. Think about finger size – Learning activities must consider finger size and activities must be designed accordingly (e.g. if you are doing a drag and drop activity, are the boxes big enough for a learner to actually touch and drag? If not, the activity won’t work).
3. Think about screen size – Less text is definitely better when you are creating learning for mobile. Due to the small screen, it is just not possible to have heavy text on the screen, like in some eLearning courses. Things that look great on a desktop eLearning course can look terrible when shrunk down on a mobile device.

Traps to Avoid

Here are some common traps you should avoid when designing for mobile learning.

1. Don’t use the same font for all devices! – Our experience has been that 4-5 point font works well on small phones, 5-6 on a large mobile device and 7-8 point font for a tablet works best.
2. Don’t publish for a universal experience. Publish eLearning courses to work with specific mobile operating systems. Publish specifically for the device the learner is on (e.g. iOS, Android, Windows, etc.) If you are not publishing the learning specifically for the device, it becomes very confusing to the learner as they are expecting to be able to use the same navigation as they normally would on their own mobile. A course that works the same on all platforms can often be very confusing for the learner as it may require different interactions and navigation then what the learner is use to doing on their own mobile device.
3. Use standard navigation that is intuitive when designing eLearning for mobile devices – You know how most eLearning has the language “click the next button to advance the screen or click the previous button to go back. Remember to change the language for advancing the course such as “Swipe your mobile device from right to left to advance the course”. Make the language match the medium.

Mobile learning is an innovative way of increasing learner’s access to training.  Keep these tips in mind and avoid the common traps to ensure a successful mobile learning launch!

If you want to know more about Mobile Learning, please visit us at http://www.pathwaystrainingandelearning.ca or contact us at info@pathwaysinc.ca.

 

New Trend – Learning Portals with Social Media Elements

One of the interesting things about being a vendor, is trends in the marketplace become evident quickly.  Over the last 6 months, we have had multiple requests from clients to develop learning portals.

Just like the google interface, a learning portal can be used to access all of a company’s training information.  It can be cloud-based or can be attached to a company’s learning management system (LMS). With learning portals, when you do a search, bite sized training information will appear in order of relevance based on key words in the search field.  Gone are the days of 50 page participant guides or long eLearning courses. The most effective learning portals, will show short infographics, videos or eLearning modules that will take only minutes to read or take.  Everything from videos, job aids, to on the job training will be accessed in bite-sized chunks that can be read and easily understood before being applied on the job.

We are seeing an increasing request for learning portals that also have social media and community of practice elements (COP). What I mean by this is that learners will be able to add comments, or will be able to “like” (think Facebook) any training informationwhich they find helpful. Interfaces will also be able to show which information is “trending” at any time (meaning a high-volume of users are looking for the same training information in a given period).

We are also getting requests for portal customization.  More and more corporate clients are asking for the ability to have learners login to a learning portal and to see information customized to their training needs.

I remember attending a session at the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTSD) annual conference 12 years ago, where a professor from York  University was talking about how learning on demand, would be the latest trends – 12 years later,  I think this trend is finally here!

 

To know more about Learning Portals, please visit us at http://www.pathwaystrainingandelearning.ca!

THE LIMITS OF STORYLINE, OR WHY WE CAN’T USE IT FOR LEARNING GAMES

WHAT CAN STORYLINE ACCOMPLISH?

The short answer to the question of Storyline’s capabilities as they relate to anything outside of pre-packaged eLearning, is… not much. A bold statement, to some, but as an experienced gamer, programmer, and eLearning developer it’s a hard truth. With that said, I’ll give more detail as to why exactly that is, and shed some light on the issue.

Regardless of industry, we all want to promote our skills, and really flex the muscles of our software. To that end, I’ll begin with what’s possible in the Storyline sandbox and give credit where it’s due. A good starting point is that if you want a templated eLearning module, or a series of them, there’s really no substitute for Articulate Storyline. With it, you’re able to create a template and package any number of effects in the program. Storyline seems to me like someone took PowerPoint’s user interface and was told to keep adding features until they ran out of ideas. Seriously, compare the two. It’s shocking. Here are a few pros to Storyline:

• Pre-packaged
• Quick
• More powerful then PowerPoint
• Comes with SCORM on export

WHAT STORYLINE CAN’T ACCOMPLISH

 

Now that we’re done with our praises, we’ll review the other side of things. Earlier I compared Storyline to PowerPoint, which is a more important comparison than you may think. It’s due to the fact that you have the ability to make a functional learning program, but without the ability to do much more. It’s like having PowerPoint with a few more effects (on a timeline), a flash player, and a functional question bank feature for quizzing that simplifies the whole process. With that being said, once you cross the realm of a sequential learning program, all you’re left with is a web of slide linkages if you want to produce anything more exciting, such as a Jeopardy program. A program that, with time and preparation, on another platform such as Flash would give you much more flexibility. Here are a few cons to Storyline:

• Pre-packaged (this also works against it for those who want more customization)
• Too much like PowerPoint
• Customization is possible, but it takes time and often requires more complex programming (individuals who are not programmers, may find it difficult to customize eLearning beyond what is offered in Storyline)
• External calls (outside of the pre-packaged ones) require JavaScript
• Lacks functionality for more engaging programs (i.e. mobile learning games, virtual simulations or gamification in eLearning courses).

WRAPPING UP

 

Having said what I have about Powerpoint err… Storyline, I’ve seen many people out there trying to create eLearning programs that seem to have more complex logic with Storyline, but simply do not. To create the most engaging eLearning courses or mobile learning games, Storyline does not have the capabilities in most cases, to do what we need it to do. Custom programming is required to create truly engaging on-line experience.

If you would like to explore more about gamification, mobile learning and eLearning, take a peek at our company website: Pathways Training and eLearning, at http://www.pathwaystrainingandelearning.com/ . We always look for fresh ways to engage learners and to make the learning experience as fun as possible!