Experiencing eLearning

JANUARY 31, 2023

Betty Dannewitz, host of the If You Ask Betty Podcast , is currently sharing a series of three episodes about Encanto and learning. I was part of the discussion for episode two: Let’s Talk About Bruno. Betty asked Destery Hildenbrand, Eamonn Powers, Jonathan Hill, and me to talk about Bruno as a metaphor for learning. We had a lively conversation for about an hour about Bruno, Abuela, the Encanto movie, storytelling, and how it relates to learning and development.

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Experiencing eLearning

JANUARY 17, 2023

Back in 2015, I gave a short presentation for the Online Network of Independent Learning Professionals on finding freelance clients. In reality, I don’t do very much to actively seek out clients; most of my freelance clients find me. Here are the recommendations I shared with the group on how to become visible to clients (plus some updates). Even though this presentation is several years old, my methods haven’t really changed much.

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Experiencing eLearning

AUGUST 16, 2022

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on accessibility and disability, outreach emails for freelancers, the importance of failure in learning, branching scenarios, and more. Accessibility and disability. Accessible color palette builder. While there are lots of tools for creating color palettes, this is the first one I have seen that so clearly notes the accessibility of different combinati

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Experiencing eLearning

JULY 5, 2022

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes workshop pricing, useful tools and resources for L&D professionals, volunteering and internship guidelines, scenarios, games, and diverse stock images. Workshop pricing. What to Charge for Your Workshop, Training or Webinar — The Counselor’s Coach.

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Experiencing eLearning

JUNE 28, 2022

Last week, I attended and presented at TICE 2022 ( Training Industry Conference & Expo ). This is the first time I have attended any Training Industry event. It was also the first time the conference has been back to in person since the beginning of the pandemic. This is a local conference for me, hosted in Raleigh, NC, about 30 minutes from home.

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Experiencing eLearning

JUNE 7, 2022

I have written before about how research informs my work. As instructional designers, LXDs, and other L&D professionals, I think it’s important for us to learn how to design more effective learning experiences. Our work should be informed by research and evidence. But, how do you learn about learning science, especially if you don’t have a graduate degree in instructional design?

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 17, 2022

Do you need a villain in a learning story? Several years ago, I attended an interesting webinar by Joe Ganci on how to use science fiction to improve eLearning. In the presentation, Joe talked about elements of storytelling common to science fiction and how to incorporate those aspects for better stories in elearning. Personifying a challenge. One of Joe’s points was that great science fiction stories have a compelling villain that allows the heroes to be heroic.

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 10, 2022

Last year, I built a simple Twine chatbot in 2 hours. It simulated a customer service chat conversation. In preparation for my demo in the TLDC eLearning Tools Summit , I revisited my chatbot and made some improvements to make it look more like a real customer service chat. This is a rules-based chatbot, where users pick from a few pre-programmed choices.

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 3, 2022

I recently had the pleasure of speaking in a webinar on instructional design careers and trends. On the panel with me was Val Quezada , ISD at Takeda Los Angeles. We answered questions about both instructional design career pathways and where instructional design may be heading in the future. Val’s background and career journey is quite different from mine, so I think it was helpful to have our different perspectives.

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Experiencing eLearning

APRIL 26, 2022

When I attend conferences, I take a lot of notes (old school, handwritten in a notebook notes). Over the years, I’ve found that it’s helpful to review those notes after the conference to pull out one or two key takeaways from each session I attend. Learning Solutions 2022 was the first in-person event I have attended since the beginning of the pandemic, and it felt good to reconnect with people I’ve met before and to make new connections.

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Experiencing eLearning

MARCH 8, 2022

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on insights for L&D, Twine, game design, graphic design, and quality assurance for elearning. Insights for L&D professionals. Best from the Brightest: Key Ideas and Insights for L&P Professionals – TiER1 Performance. 48 learning and performance leaders share their favorite content shared in 2021.

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Experiencing eLearning

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

If you’re not active in L&D Twitter, you might have missed the big debate recently about whether and how research is relevant to the work of instructional designers and corporate training professionals. While some of that was likely deliberately controversial to generate traffic, the discussion raised some important points. Sometimes, we perceive a disconnect between research and practice.

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Experiencing eLearning

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

When we, as instructional designers, write scripts that are easy for voice over talent to understand, they can record and edit those scripts faster. We’ll also end up with a better end product. Following a few formatting tips for voice over scripts can make our our writing clearer and easier to use. This is part 2 in my series of posts on tips for creating voice over scripts. 1: Voice Over Scripts: Writing Style Tips 2: Formatting Tips for Voice Over Scripts (current post) 3: Voice Over Sc

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Experiencing eLearning

DECEMBER 14, 2021

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on games for learning, video captions, and how to handle “pick your brain” requests. Games for learning. “Game Making for Dummies” | HiEv Heavy Industries on Patreon. While this is about making more complex games in Twine, much of this could apply to building more complex branching scenarios and simulations too. 6 Things Video Ga

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Experiencing eLearning

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on Twine, storytelling, branching scenarios, freelancing costs, resources for new IDs, and recorded conference sessions. Twine. Twine in higher ed. Lesson plans – Teaching with Twine. This post includes lesson plans for teaching students how to use Twine, either in a single 50-minute session or in two days with extra time for practicing in the tool.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

I had the pleasure of speaking with Sandhya Lakhanpal on her new podcast, Redefine Instruction. She launched this summer with Tim Slade as her first guest. Our conversation focused on storytelling for L&D. We discussed a range of options for using storytelling and scenario-based learning. We also talked about my journey from teaching to instructional design.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

In my Twine scenario on stakeholder writing feedback, I show conditional feedback messages at the end based on the choices made. I do this by scoring the decisions and adding to a total score each time. At the end, I check the score and show a feedback message based on the range. In this post, I’ll explain step by step how I used scoring and feedback in Twine.

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Experiencing eLearning

AUGUST 10, 2021

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on instructional design research and principles, productivity, video, animation, visual design, an elearning example, and my article on scenario-based learning for TD Magazine. Instructional design research and principles.

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Experiencing eLearning

JULY 13, 2021

In a branching scenario, how long should we let learners go down the wrong path? What’s the balance between realism and efficiency? In a comment to my post on Managing the Complexity in Branching Scenarios , Nicole Legault made a interesting point. “Why make a learner go so far down a wrong path? I think it’s best to correct and try to get them back on the right (or best) path.” To some extent, I agree with Nicole.

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Experiencing eLearning

JUNE 29, 2021

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with JW Marshall on the Voices of E-learning podcast. We talked broadly about trends in workplace training. One of the themes of our conversation was how emotionally engaging content can improve learning outcomes. You can watch the interview here or on Apple Podcasts. Trends in learning. One quote they pulled from our conversation was, “I see increasing interest in doing more than just checking a box to say the training was done.” I’m seeing in

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 25, 2021

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on what hiring managers want, storytelling, and tools from outside of L&D that can be useful for instructional designers. What ID hiring managers want. Instructional Design Hiring Manager Report 2021. Devlin Peck summarizes and analyzes responses from 101 hiring managers surveyed about what factors influence their decisions when evaluating instructi

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 18, 2021

After attending the Learning Solutions Digital Experience (LSDX 2021), I summarized some highlights and new things I learned. These are my week 2 highlights; you can also read my summary from LSDX week 1. I hope the highlights are helpful to those who couldn’t attend the conference (and those who did attend, but missed sessions and are deciding which recordings to review).

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 4, 2021

The Harlowe story format for Twine provides a number of built-in features to make it easier to enhance your stories, even if you have no experience with HTML, CSS, or Javascript. The toolbar makes these features easier to access, providing simple ways to format text, set conditional states, or manage variables. However, Harlowe has so many options that it has its own learning curve.

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Experiencing eLearning

MARCH 23, 2021

I have given a number of presentations on scenario-based learning over the past five years, plus a few presentations on other topics. I have also had the pleasure of being interviewed on several podcasts and video casts. While I often share those recordings on my blog as they happen, this is the first time I have compiled a complete list like this. All of these recordings are freely available with no registration.

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Experiencing eLearning

MARCH 16, 2021

A number of years ago, I was a judge for a competition on scenario-based learning. While there were a few terrific submissions, I thought many of the courses missed one of the great features of scenario-based learning. They started out fine: they provided some sort of realistic context and asked learners to make a decision. Then, instead of showing them the consequences of their decision, they just provided feedback as if it was any other multiple choice assessment. “Correct, that is the b

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Experiencing eLearning

MARCH 9, 2021

When you are a freelancer or independent consultant, you have to invoice your clients. It can be tricky to figure out the specifics of how to bill. These questions about elearning freelancer invoicing came from Deborah Rivera in response to my post about time estimates for elearning development. Different rates for different tasks. Do you charge the same hourly rate for each task?

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Experiencing eLearning

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

One technique for creating a story-based course is using two characters who explain the content via a conversation. In this conversation-driven elearning approach, I usually use one character who acts as a coach and one character who is similar to the audience: same job role, same level of experience. In this example, the audience is new managers who don’t have much experience with coaching and mentoring.

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Experiencing eLearning

JANUARY 19, 2021

In a previous post, How to Start Creating Conversation-Driven eLearning , I described how I use conversations between two characters (a mentor and mentee or learning character) to deliver eLearning content. In this post, I’ll explain how to write and structure these conversations for eLearning. My next post in the series explains options for multimedia with conversation-driven eLearning.

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Experiencing eLearning

DECEMBER 22, 2020

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. In this post, I share links on laptops for IDs, interleaving practice, resources for freelancers, and a podcast interview. Laptops for IDs. Best Laptops for Instructional Designers in 2020 Devlin Peck walks through the important factors for picking a laptop for instructional design and elearning professionals.

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Experiencing eLearning

DECEMBER 1, 2020

I built this branching scenario prototype in Twine , a free, open source tool for creating nonlinear stories. This scenario is moderately complex, with a total of 17 pages (or passages in Twine terminology) and 8 different endings. The ideal path has 5 decisions to reach the best conclusion. Prototyping in Twine. I generally use Twine as a prototype for review and testing purposes.

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Experiencing eLearning

NOVEMBER 3, 2020

DevLearn was different this year. It was fully online, called the “DevLearn Digital Experience” (DDX). Even online, it was a great experience. The sessions were valuable, and there was a sense of energy and community that doesn’t often happen in online events. As part of my reflection, I always try to pull out one or two key ideas from each session.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. In this post, I share links on writing better dialogue, sample projects for inspiration, and useful tools for different kinds of learning. Writing dialogue. How to Write Natural Dialogue in 11 Steps, With Examples! Tips for writing dialogue, with examples from novels.

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Experiencing eLearning

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

In branching scenarios, we can use a combination of immediate and delayed consequences and feedback. Consequences are what happens as a result of decisions: what they see, hear, or experience. Feedback is what we tell learners after decisions. Both can be either immediate or delayed, giving us a table like this. Immediate Consequences Immediate Feedback Delayed Consequences Delayed Feedback.

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Experiencing eLearning

AUGUST 25, 2020

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. In this post, I share links on video conference tips and tools, video production costs, diversity, and freelancing. Video conference tips and tools. Zoom breakout workaround Want to let people choose their own breakout rooms in Zoom?

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Experiencing eLearning

AUGUST 4, 2020

The traditional multiple choice questions we use in assessment are often abstract and measure only whether people recall facts they heard in the last 5 minutes. Converting these questions to scenario-based questions can increase the level of difficulty, measure higher level thought, and provide relevant context. Example Question. Let’s say you’re creating training for managers on how to provide reasonable accommodations for employees.

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Experiencing eLearning

JUNE 23, 2020

Do instructional designers and learning experience designers need to know how to use development tools, or should they focus just on analysis and design? What about people who only do development but no design; are they instructional designers? How much project management falls under the role of instructional designer? What about LMSs—do instructional designers need to know about those too?

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Experiencing eLearning

MAY 19, 2020

If you’re just starting the process of selecting and implementing a new Learning Management System (LMS), the process can feel a little overwhelming. This is especially true for organizations who don’t currently have an LMS and are starting completely from scratch. I often see organizations struggle to even identify what questions they should be asking.

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