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

A Little Happy-Dance Moment... & a Sneak Peek

So, today I got some kudos from our VP, and I was asked to present at the review board meeting (in about a month).  I'm excited, and super grateful for the compliment! It's really nice to receive unsolicited positive feedback about work you're doing.  While I wouldn't say this is my favorite elearning course ever, I think taking into consideration some of the things that I've been mulling over in my head has been beneficial.

First of all, it's an info-dump kind of course.  Let's face it, we all encounter those.  We have a "learner" audience (or at least many of them) that are out there doing stuff by the seat of their pants, and not bringing as much value to their position as they could, or as we (the company) had hoped in making this process part of surgeon training.  Instead of just dumping all this "recommended" topics list and process on them with bullets and maybe a few pictures, I tried to incorporate some of the things I've been thinking about - like connecting with our purpose - what's the real purpose for the learner to learn this stuff?

I also incorporated some example scenarios that would give them an idea of how the process would hopefully play out in real life.  We're not talking high-tech here, they're just little speech and thought bubbles while the voiceover will explain the process.  But just getting away from reading the screen & the full-paragraph-of-text-death-by-powerpoint way of doing things, I'm hoping to move at least a few steps in the right direction.

So far, as I mentioned, great feedback! So, that's a good thing! Now on to finishing the development & making it as valuable as possible.


But... there's this other element of the positive feedback... the fact that our VP asked me to present to the review board.  This is where my little "individual contributor" heart starts pounding and the butterflies start doing cartwheels in my tummy.  

I'm going to need to pick a few representative slides & present them - to VPs and people who make those big sweeping decisions about our business! EEK!! :)  I'm sure I'll be fine, but it's nerve-wracking, and out of my comfort zone.  I'll need to think of the module from a larger business perspective and how to talk about it that way, and practice, practice, practice.  Luckily, my boss is awesome & offered to help me practice before the meeting so I can be cool, calm & collected (which is hard for me sometimes) ;)  

So, if anyone is up for providing some helpful ideas on how to approach this whole business perspective thing, PLEASE leave some comments, shoot me a tweet (@megbertapelle) or an email megbertapelleid@gmail.com.


Thanks in advance!
~Meg