This month’s video has a duration of 1:43:47, so find a cozy seating area and your favorite beverage. Thiagi begins at 8:32 (if you want to queue it up).

Description

Learn how Thiagi and his team undertake complete instructional design projects without the use of time-consuming, low-value-added, traditional ISD models. Thiagi has created, tested and successfully applied his own model that produces rapid prototypes tomorrow. Learn how to reduce training budgets and development time, deliver quality instruction during tough economic times, and retrain instructional designers to cope with corporate realities.

http://youtu.be/CYqm8ao1i2c

If you’ve learned a new ISD “gem” from Thiagi, agree with his model, or disagree with it, please feel free to discuss the video in the Comments section below, on my Facebook Wall, or my LinkedIn page. Or, tweet your thoughts to me on Twitter.

@jenisecook

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.

This video is 45 minutes and 18 seconds, so set aside time for the quotable pearls or gems, such as: “The story becomes so pervasive that the teller and the listeners are immersed in it together.” It’s a co-created reality, a sense of community.

I chose a few things to paraphrase to pique your interest:

With a really good story, we gain information, knowledge, wisdom, and we expand our boundaries. In the story, there are things that transform us, and as storytellers we hope to change people. The listeners must be willing to change. If that’s the case, the story is more able to help that transformation to take place.

Memories, if you can get your story to evoke memories in the listeners, then they begin to connect at a deeply personal level. They begin to replace what you’re describing with their own personal experiences, and they see themselves in them.

The power of storytelling transforms.

Are we transforming our learners through effective stories?

The e-Learning Guild held its annual DevLearn Conference in San Francisco, California, earlier this month. Hundreds of instructional designers and developers attended as always. Me? I had e-learning projects to wrap up, and I felt sad that I could not fly up and see some wonderful people this year.

Instead, Terrence Wing, of LiquidLearn, interviewed me for a (pre-recorded) streaming Web T.V. broadcast he used in an all-day, pre-conference workshop! So, in a way, I was at DevLearn, but virtually.

I’m posting the YouTube video Terrence made. I’m humbly grateful for this wonderful opportunity he gave me to share my crazy thoughts on instructional design. Here’s what Terrence wrote about this video:

Terrence used Justin.tv a streaming video tool you might want to look into for your video projects.

Enjoy!

(P.S. I haven’t written a blog post in over a month because I’ve been busy, but, I’ve also been spending more time posting on Twitter.com I’ve been learning a great deal lately about the effectiveness of social media. How about you? Feel free to write and share a Comment.)

I’ve used both processes as either/or but not together. Recently, I decided to use both processes simultaneously, and I sent out a tweet about it on Twitter. A couple of “tweeples” replied that they were interested in hearing more.

Simultaneous Storyboarding in Word and PowerPoint

SimulStoryboarding: Word & PPT

The screen shot to the left shows my desktop on my Apple MacBook Pro laptop. I have Office for the Mac. Word is open on the left, and on the right you can see the Thumbnails view in PowerPoint (PPT).

The Word document shows the storyboard template for two screens (click the image to enlarge). The PPT file shows the draft prototype for each screen in the course, and the generic elements (circles, squares, rectangles) I added as placeholders for the actual photos, text, and graphical elements I’ll add later.

I begin by writing the “business story” in Word. As I begin to think in terms of on-screen content and navigation, I use PPT to prototype what I’m thinking in terms of the navigation and content “load” on each screen. I really enjoy this process because PPT helps me to “flesh out” what I write in Word, and make corrections where needed.

This post is brief, so if you’d like additional information, feel free to contact me at this e-mail address:

info AT RidgeViewMedia.com

And, in the Comments, please share your storyboard tips and tricks so we all can learn from each other. Thanks!