When I’m developing an e-learning course in a PowerPoint-based tool, like Articulate Presenter, I obviously create the storyboards in PowerPoint (PPT) most of the time. Most of my SMEs use PPT at work anyway, so they’re comfortable with it. In Notes View, the upper section of the page shows my mock-up or rough sketch of the screens, and the Notes Pane below contains my notes about the OSDs (on-screen directions), programing notes, course content, and audio/visual ideas.

My gratitude for the Master Slide feature in PowerPoint knows no bounds! This post is about a 127-slide storyboard for an e-learning course on a 401(k) plan, for a non-linear course where learners can choose the topics they want to review. And, once viewing the selected topic, the learners go through branching scenarios in a non-linear fashion.

The PPT storyboard successfully completed two review cycles! Then, one day, about a week or so before launch on the enterprise LMS, I got the SME phone call:

“Ah, we’re changing the title of the course…. ”

From: [ ACME's Retirement Plans ]

To: [ ACME's ACRONYM 401(k) Plan ]

Because I had built the storyboard/course on PPT’s Master Slides, I could keep my cool and calmly tell the SME

“No problem! That’s an easy fix.”

With the course background and main title on the storyboard’s Master Slide, I only needed to change the title one time, and that change was applied to all 127 slides.

Okay, I can hear you now:

“That’s a no brainer!”, you cry out. “We all know about that. It’s old news.”

I’m a Mentor, You’re a Mentor….Wouldn’t You Like to Be a Mentor, Too?

True, the above is a no brainer perhaps, but not everyone thinks about using the Master Slides, especially SMEs. I often mentor SMEs in rapid e-learning course design and development. I tell them that it really pays to think through, plan, and try to capture everything needed (requirements) at the very beginning of a project.

During the A-Analysis phase of ADDIE, the SMEs need to thoroughly brainstorm not only the course content and outcomes, but how they will use their design and development tools such as PPT. And, that’s where you and I, as Learning Consultants, come in as mentors.

As a mentor, that Analysis phase includes sharing with my SMEs the PPT storyboard tips-and-tricks that keep the project on time and within budget. This is important because many times SMEs will throw a PPT slide deck at e-learning designers and developers and say,

“Make this an online course. I need it in a month.”

When we all mentor our SMEs on how to effectively and efficiently use PPT as a tool, we can all relax a little bit more during Alpha and Beta review cycles.

If you have your favorite PPT tips-and-tricks, please share them in your Comment on this post! Or, tweet them to me on Twitter.com

@jenisecook  on Twitter.com

The mentor role ensures that I’m “Always Learning”, and that I pass on lessons learned to my SMEs.

Or, Do It My Way…

With apologies to Frank Sinatra, then there’s my way of organizing and managing e-learning project files. The “system” I use I borrowed from my early Web site design days. Our Adobe Dreamweaver and Flash instructor showed us a system that works well for both individual designers and those who work on multiple projects shared by several designers. See my screen shot below:

On my local drive (my C: or hard drive), I have a directory, or folder, named “Articulate Presenter”. Inside that folder I file all of my Articulate e-learning project files. In the image to the right, “00ProjectFolders” I keep as a template for future projects. I simply copy that folder and paste it with a new name, such as, “ACME New Hire Orientation”. That folder is the main project folder, and it contains lots of subdirectories (subfolders) inside. Those subfolders contain the precious assets for my projects. They are:

ACME New Hire Orientation (example project name)

• Assets
• Engage
• PPT
• Published Output
• Quizzes

The “Assets” folder really helps me keep things straight, and is organized this way:

Assets (folder)

• audio
  • music
  • vo (for voice overs/narration)
• docs (for PDFs and Word files)
• img
• swf (for Flash *.SWF files)
• video (FLVs, MP4s)

I know I’ve described this structure quickly. So, if you have questions about how I organize and manage my e-learning project files, please send me an e-mail message.

And, help us all to learn more as well. Please share your ideas in the Comments below, and be sure to visit Tom’s blog and add your 2 cents there.

This year, I finally submitted an entry to the Guru Awards. I’ve been using Articulate’s suite of e-learning software since early 2007. I’ve sat on the sidelines and watched as previous entries earned an honorable mention as well as those who win the top three awards each year.

However, as I submitted my entry, I knew in my heart that others would have more bells and whistles, more whiz-bangs, more wow-factor than the project I submitted. And yet, that didn’t bother me because I submitted an entry for a particular reason. (See my entry at the end of this post.)

LINGOs and the e-Learning Community

Earlier this year, through The eLearning Guild, I learned about LINGOs. The Guild and LINGOs promoted the first-annual Global Giveback Contest. They challenged e-learning instructional designers and developers to donate time and talents to help Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) with their online learning initiatives. (Tom Kuhlmann and David Anderson of Articulate also created a course through LINGOs.)

Mauricio Gutierrez - Click to view LinkedIn Profile

Mauricio Gutierrez, Leadership Development at World Vision International (WVI), had listed a project request for designing and developing an online orientation for World Vision International’s Global Leader Orientation (GLO) program.

I partnered with Mauricio, and over a couple of months, we created a brief and fairly simple Orientation, or overview, of WVI’s eCampus, its online learning activities, and the three phases of the GLO program.

About the Course

The learner audience consists of newly hired and existing WVI leadership staff. And, many of these staff members work in very remote locations in countries with limited Internet access. Bandwidth, a key issue, played a huge role in the course’s simple design. In addition, WVI’s standard PowerPoint template provided the required framework for our design elements.

Mauricio wanted the course to tell the GLO story, so I created a basic look-and-feel of an open book for most of the screens. The Engage Flipbook interaction didn’t provide the screen real estate we needed, so I used an image of an open book from my image library.

As the learners “turn” each “page” of the story, they discover more about the three phases of the GLO program.

Oh, and Mauricio had previewed some of my voice over demo reels, and he asked me to record, edit, and produce the audio narration for the course. As Murphy’s Law would have it, I was scheduled to record the narration the day after I was down three days with an nasty, summer flu bug. The show must go on, and it did.

How We Worked

Mauricio and I both have Skype accounts, and we communicated constantly either via Chat or Skype voice calls. We also used email messages, my DropBox account, and WVI’s CMS for larger messages, the transfer of files, and communication with Mauricio’s colleagues in Australia and other countries.

We also began with a written storyboard in Microsoft Word so we could establish and refine the design with his colleagues in other countries before I began the rapid development of the course itself.

Mauricio was great to work with! And, in June, we met in person at The Guild’s mobile learning conference, mLearnCon, in San Diego, California.

Conclusion

When I think about the GLO program, and the WVI staff members in remote locations around the world who may view this Orientation, I feel connected to a larger purpose, one far beyond my own client work and my billable projects.

I submitted my Guru Awards entry for two reasons: (1) to thank Mauricio and World Vision International for the privilege of assisting them with their initiatives, and (2) to encourage my e-learning colleagues to visit the LINGOs site and then do the same for another NGO. I hope they don’t wait for another Global Giveback Contest. NGOs are waiting for help now, and people can begin at any time.

Click to view the course.

And now, the course! Just click the image on the left, or this link:

http://www.ridgeviewmedia.com/WorldVision/player.html

Yesterday, I was asked how I estimate the number of hours it could take to design and develop learning activities for a training (workplace performance improvement) project.

My answer? “It depends.”

That said, my colleagues and I do have to provide clients with an estimated delivery date for projects, and so I fall back on a few helpful resources.

A Few Resources for You

Dr. Karl Kapp (on Twitter, @kkapp) wrote an article for ASTD in 2003, then revised it in 2009, along with co-author Robyn A. Defelice. This article is worth your study and application when you estimate time for your projects. For me, it is an invaluable resource, so I hope it helps you:

Time to Develop One Hour of Training – Dr. Karl Kapp and Robyn A. Defelice

http://www.astd.org/LC/2009/0809_kapp.htm

David Gaw also refers to this ASTD resource and adds a few thoughts of his own at his blog:

http://www.changeordered.com/2009/12/how-long-to-develop-an-hour-of-training.html

And, here is Dr. Kapp’s original 2003 article:

http://www.astd.org/LC/2003/0703_kapp.htm

“Time to Create Course” Thread on the Articulate Forums

Earlier this year, we had a lively discussion on the estimating topic in the Articulate Forums. From the link below, you’ll find three forum pages of posts, including a long one from me. The nice thing is several forum members contributed their thoughts from real-world experience. I know you’ll find helpful advice from this source:

http://www.articulate.com/forums/general-discussion/15680-time-create-course.html

Keep Track of Your Project Hours

One e-learning consultant in another state told me his “secret”. When he gets a brand new client, he does not work on a fixed, project fee basis, he always works on an hourly basis. When a new client is new to e-learning, he finds he’s also a coach as well as an ID and a developer, and the coaching takes up more of his time. He reports his time to the client weekly (or twice a month), and he said the reports help “reign in” the client when needed due to the client always changing things after a design was approved.

I open up a simple Excel file and track hours that way. I include meetings, conference calls, and time spent communicating through e-mail messages. I know not everyone likes ADDIE, but each element is a good header for me to use to track time on a project for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation.

How do you estimate? Please share with us by writing a Comment below.

Flipbooks are a current novelty and a fun interaction appropriate in some e-learning courses. The Articulate ’09 suite of rapid e-learning development tools has an Engage Flipbook interaction. However, I often find that the pages in the published interaction look too narrow to me.

Through my online, personal learning network I discovered Youblisher.com from Brian Batt of Articulate. I viewed his screencast tutorial, went to Youblisher.com to upload an old user guide I created some time ago, and created my first Youblisher.com Web-based (Flash) flipbook from a PDF file.

Take a look by clicking the image below. (Note: The PDF file I used was a low resolution file.)

Click image to view flipbook in a new Youblisher.com browser window.

Brian Batt of Articulate created a screencast of Youblisher.com and added it to his post on the Word of Mouth Blog. You can insert the Youblisher.com output as a Web Object in an Articulate online course to use it instead of the Engage flipbook interaction if you need wider pages for your content.

You can view Brian’s screen cast here:

Or, click the link below to view it directly on Screenr:

http://screenr.com/RRh

I’m already thinking of some ideas on how to use Youblisher.com in future e-learning courses!