Blog posts

What are the things you're good at, but take other people a lot of time and effort? What do people compliment you on, but you downplay it because it feels so easy to you? What can you do well that surprises other people? Chris Lema shares questions to reflect on your skills to identify your special strengths. This isn't about instructional design, but it seems relevant to our field where there's a wide range of skills under the general umbrella. Within that broad scope of L&D, what's your superpower? This is also another way to think about identifying a niche for freelancers and consulting businesses.

We all probably know we should use easier to understand language in instructional writing, but this article provides more specifics on how to actually do that. The before and after writing example shows what a significant difference it can make.

App for creating poses for characters. These are just outlines, which you'd have to illustrate yourself in another app. Kevin Thorn demonstrated this as a way to create custom characters for scenarios, which you can pose in exactly the way you need. This is a browser-based app, currently $19.

Recording of my session at DevLearn 2020

Devlin Peck summarizes and analyzes responses from 101 hiring managers surveyed about what factors influence their decisions when evaluating instructional design and elearning candidates.

Kayleen Holt summarizes takeaways from TLDC's community day focused on the theme of story (including notes from my session)

A humorous Choose Your Own Adventure branching scenario sample by Jonathan Hill. The look and feel matches the classic books. Jonathan includes a tip to consider adding decisions in the beginning that have no impact on the outcome (just a cosmetic change), but provide a tutorial or practice on using the controls.

Mark Weingarten used this utility in his advanced Storyline session at LSCon. It shows your keyboard shortcuts on screen so others can better understand what you're doing. Super useful for anyone doing software training or screencasts.

I haven't tried this tool, but it looks like a decent tool for creating or subtitling a quick video with a free tool. The free version has limits in video length and only exports to 780p, but that might be enough for a quick portfolio sample. As a paid tool, I think most elearning folks would probably be better off paying a little more to get Camtasia instead.

This is an example of a chatbot simulation to teach people how to persuade people to get vaccinated using motivational interviewing techniques. This includes immediate feedback after each choice, right or wrong (appropriate for an audience with zero background in motivational interviewing, even if it breaks up the conversation). The branching structure is a simple gauntlet. After each wrong choice, you get feedback and then are forced to pick the correct choice to continue the conversation.

Tool for reviewing videos with comments. The free plan is limited to 2 projects but might be enough for some uses

A tool for collecting feedback on video, audio, or images. The free plan allows only 1 project, but that lets you try it out. $9/month for the first tier paid plan with unlimited reviewers.

Marketplace for buying and selling elearning templates and assets. Think of this like a "teachers pay teachers" for IDs and elearning developers. If you have a few things you'd like to see but don't want to set up your own website to sell them, you can use this site.

A collection of resources for Twine, including story formats, compilers, extensions, guides, and communities

In this sample, Tracy used Storyline to simulate the look and feel of BranchTrack. The choices are styled with numbers and text like BranchTrack, and the push transition between slides mimics the effect between choices. If you don't have BranchTrack but like that style, this shows how you can accomplish the same effect in Storyline. This could be used for a lot of branching scenarios or short sims.

A method for taking notes where you can link ideas together. This was originally designed as a method for taking paper-based notes but with effectively a hyperlink between ideas. This isn't tagging per se, but a way to connect ideas and keep a large amount of notes organized over time.

Ryan Tracey clarifies related and often confusingly overlapping terms related to the spacing effect for learning: spaced presentation, spaced practice, spaced retrieval, distributed practice, expanding practice, and more.

Provide hex codes for colors and get tints (lighter) and shades (darker) of that color. Useful for staying within a color scheme while still providing some variety

Free stock videos; commercial use is OK. These could be used as b roll, transitions, or backgrounds.

I want to learn to be more efficient using the blocks in Wordpress, so I'm saving this list of keyboard shortcuts

A 12-part series on Merrill's First Principles of Instruction

Summary of research on the value of telling learners the objectives at the beginning of training. The research supports giving learners specific "focusing objectives" to help them recognize what's important. However, that doesn't mean those objectives need to be the same formal learning objectives we use as IDs. In fact, using objectives as multiple choice questions to show people what they don't know yet may be effective.

Tool for creating 2D and 3D animated videos. The basic plan is $99 for a lifetime license, with limited characters and templates.

Research comparing job listings to the ATD capability model.

My article on scenario-based learning for TD Magazine (members only)

When installing Twine on a Mac, you may get a warning about it being an "unidentified developer." This is just Apple trying to restrict you from leaving their walled garden and using an open source program where they can't make any money. Follow these directions to change the security settings and install the program.

Kayleen Holt compares 4 different calculators for estimating time and cost for elearning development

Free tool for managing audio files with Twine and Harlowe