Yup, I'm still alive

And yes, I'm still not keeping up with the blogging. I've been a basket case, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Had a great time at DevLearn this year. No huge epiphanies, but lots of good stuff - great discussions, excellent time with friends, and I participated in DemoFest this year, which was kind of fun. I didn't win anything, but it was a fun experience & hopefully I'll have something better to show next time :)

 

I got to take a pic with Atsumi (the character model from Articulate Storyline) which was very silly & fun. My buddy David Anderson was hanging out at the booth, so had a nice little visit with him right before this pic:

I also got to visit with Kelly Meeker, which is ALWAYS fun, and take some Articulate customer pictures - haven't seen those yet, but I'm hoping in the next couple months or so, they'll be around. :)

If you are DYING to read through my session notes, shoot me a DM on Twitter & I'll hook you up ;)

For more #DevLearn resources, check out David Kelly's curated backchannel resources post.

Also had more travel last weekend (family events), so now I'm trying to get back into the swing at work. Thank goodness it's an interesting project!! More about that later... ;)

Have a great day/week/month/year - depending on when I have a chance to say that again ;)
~Meg

Articulate Storyline 2 Giveaway

So hey, if you like the idea of Storyline for elearning development, but maybe you don't have the budget to buy new software, eLearning Art [here's their blog] is sponsoring a licence giveaway for the newly released Storyline 2!
Check it out!
http://blog.elearningart.com/giveaways/articulate-storyline-2-giveaway/?lucky=597

Thanks eLearning Art! :)

Bloglovin test

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/7998407/?claim=k6rkzx8ztdv">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Just because I wanted to see something... not that there's really much to follow ;)

Storyboarding

So, I'm working on a project, and I'm supposed to be done with the storyboards today.  I'm having a mental fatigue kind of week, so I'm sort of stuck.

Usually, I just jump into my program of choice (we decided as a team what we would use for this project during project planning) and start blocking out how I want to chunk info, what kinds of interactions/practice activities I will need and do like a wireframe with notes.  For some reason, I'm not making a lot of progress this way, so I think I'm going to get out a pen and actually draw.

I know there are a million different versions of storyboard templates out there in the world, but I've found keeping it simple usually works for me. I whipped this up a couple years ago when I started using Circa notebooks, so I could print out a bunch & punch it for my notebook to have on hand.  I'm happy to share with you here :)

Click image to download from Google Docs

Have a great day! and wish me luck...
~Meg

Happy New Year!

Well, so much for blogging MORE in 2013 - or at ALL! :P

This year, I've decided to just keep it simple (duh, you'd think I would have thought of that earlier).

Today, I'd like to share a Storify that @MartinCouzins was kind enough to put together of our special holiday edition of #Chat2lrn where we talked about giving back to the community. There were lots of interpretations of the word "community," which I actually thought made for a more interesting discussion :)

Enjoy!

Curated tweets from #chat2lrn Twitter chat on giving back

P.S. Martin has also put together lots of other Storifys of #chat2lrn chats, see them here:
http://storify.com/martincouzins#stories  And for more info on #chat2lrn, please see our blog: http://chat2lrn.wordpress.com/

Have a wonderful new year!
~Meg

Action Mapping in Action

Probably about a year ago, someone directed me to have a look at Cathy Moore's "Action Mapping" concept, and it was like a huge lightbulb turned on over my head!

I immediately wanted to re-design everything I'd ever developed as an instructional designer & make sure that I followed this plan - of course, that wasn't feasible - but I was able to implement it in my next project.  That project has been done for a while now, and I'm now working on other things, but I thought I might share our process with you while it's still at least somewhat fresh in my mind (since I'm still trying to do it in all my projects!).

If you're not familiar with the action mapping concept, please go check it out, I'll be here when you get back! 


Cathy Moore's "Action Mapping"

A little how-to & free PPT template

I've been working furiously on a couple of projects the last couple months, so I hope you have been happy and busy too!


2 good things: I've finished both projects & I can share a template with you today!

The template is a semi-chalkboard theme inspired by Nancy Duarte's free "Tools for Revolutionaries" 

Duarte Design's Five Rules for Presentations

...and utilizing some cutout image styles learned from the amazing David Anderson and free hand-drawn elements from the again amazing Tom Kuhlman, both via the invaluable Elearning Heroes Community.  I also utilized some free handwriting fonts, which I will link at the end of this post.


I used this design for a training module for some of our customers to introduce our recommended process, so there's a 3-step process diagram, a sectional color scheme & tabbed layout, with a resources link page at the end.  I've removed all our proprietary images and content, replacing them with Microsoft clipart, but you'll get the idea as you walk through the template.

The images were edited mostly right in PowerPoint 2010 with the remove background and film grain filters. (See Tom's posts about using these features for more info.)  To make the paper cutout (or sticker) effect, I mostly followed David's tutorial on Elearning Heroes. (Have I mentioned how helpful those guys are?)


However, since I am HORRIBLE at drawing with my mouse/trackball, I used the "Freeform" drawing tool and clicked away rather than "scribbling."  In the following screen video (created using Snagit by Techsmith), I follow the steps for creating the paper cutout with the Freeform tool, and the image editing to create the film grain effect. (sorry there's no audio, my mic stinks)




Free handwriting fonts used:
Angelina 




Daniel

Desyrel

Waiting for the Sunrise

Download the PPT file from Dropbox to use for yourself:
chalkboard_template.pptx


Enjoy!
~Meg