LS104 Making Learning Objects Shareable and Transferable
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Wednesday, March 16
Azalea/Begonia
Creating learning objects is a time-consuming process. Most learning objects have content that could be used across different courses and departments. However, many learning objects, such as videos, tutorials, instructional documentation, and online courses are created with identifying details that make them difficult to repurpose or share with other members of the organization.
In this session, you will learn guidelines for creating effective learning objects that are shareable, transferable, and easily updateable. You will learn to create a diverse learning object repository that can be utilized for many different needs. This session will also provide you the tools you need to increase the value of your work, by allowing you to share your learning object creations with your colleagues in a format that can be immediately utilized.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to create learning objects for a wider audience
- What makes a learning object shareable
- The best practices for creating shareable and transferable learning objects
- What information should not be included in learning objects
Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers.
Technology
discussed in this session:
The guidelines provided will be widely applicable to most
technologies/platforms/devices.
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Jennifer Hendryx
Instructional Developer
University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh
Jennifer Hendryx is an instructional developer at the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh. She has experience in both K-12 and higher education settings, with extensive experience in instructional design and development for online learning, professional development training, and instructional technology integration. Jennifer holds a BS in career, technical education, and training from the University of Wisconsin–Stout and an MS in career and technical education from the University of Wisconsin–Stout with an emphasis in teaching. Her graduate studies focused on adult education and generational differences in attitudes toward technology in education.
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Carrie Ann Desnoyers
Instructional Designer
eLearning Solutions
Carrie Ann Desnoyers is a freelance instructional designer and eLearning developer. She has experience developing online courses for institutes of higher learning, and experience designing and developing both online and in-person training courses. Carrie Ann holds a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and an MS in administrative leadership (instructional design) from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Her graduate studies focused on adult education and using technology with adult learners. Carrie Ann has published two scholarly articles, one in the Handbook of Research on Collaborative Learning Using Concept Mapping, and one in Applied Concept Mapping: Capturing, Analyzing, and Organizing Knowledge.
LS206 Ten Tips to Create Engaged Learners, on a Budget
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Wednesday, March 16
Palm 5
Anyone with a camera can post learning content on YouTube, but television and other media have raised the expectations of viewers, who demand highly engaging, interactive content. If it isn’t immediately relevant to their task at hand, they’ll click onto something else. At the same time, corporate budgets are tight, so instructional designers have to find creative ways to produce high-quality, professional content on a budget.
In this session, you will learn 10 specific tips for creating professional-looking eLearning that is just as useful as content developed in a studio with several thousand dollars of equipment. Using low- or no-cost tools and equipment, subject matter experts can now get in front of the camera or mic and deliver a message that is authentic, relevant, and perhaps most importantly, keeps learners hooked. This session will show you how a team of computer geeks became famous YouTube stars by using best practices in eLearning and free or low-cost tools.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to create a recording studio in a home office
- How to help SMEs develop engaging scripts
- How to develop relevant visual articulations in slides
- How to mix it up and keep your learners engaged in video
Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, developers, project managers, managers,
and directors.
Technology
discussed in this session:
PowerPoint, Camtasia, and/or ScreenFlow.
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Lynn Munsinger
Senior Group Product Manager
Oracle
Lynn Munsinger, senior group product manager in the Java and mobile tools development group at Oracle Corporation, leads a team to create learning content in a variety of formats such as in-class courses, eCourses, step-by- step tutorials, online workshops, and YouTube episodes. Lynn is a frequent presenter at user group and industry conferences.
LS306 Using Engaging Visuals in eLearning to Increase Retention
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM Wednesday, March 16
International North
Do your eLearning courses need a punch of creativity? Have your users grown tired of the same drag and drop interactions? Would you like to add something new and exciting that will increase learner retention? With the brain processing visual information 60,000 times faster than text, it’s crucial to have visual impact in your courses. The good news is that design tools are more powerful than ever and provide developers with more options for creativity.
In this session, you will explore how to quickly create unique and engaging interactions, using the triggers, states, variables, and JavaScript in Articulate Storyline 2. You will see case study examples where the need for interactivity required new, innovative ideas to improve learning. The interactions used in this session will help you to implement exciting learning that is customizable to your needs and has more of an impact on changing the behaviors of learners to meet business goals.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to address the 65 percent of learner population that are visual learners
- How using visuals are more effective in retention
- How visuals in eLearning provide context for learners
- How to incorporate the use of visuals into any style of eLearning
Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, and managers.
Technology
discussed in this session:
Articulate Storyline 1 and Storyline 2.
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Alicia Blitz
Sr. eLearning Designer/Developer
MUFG Union Bank
Alicia Blitz, a senior eLearning designer/developer for MUFG Union Bank, consults with internal clients to create eLearning that meets the client’s business objectives, while being both effective and interactive. Alicia’s background in ILT, innovative ideas, and creative design has promoted the level of excellence within her team. The team has been recognized in the learning industry with an ASTD BEST Award and a Brandon Hall Gold Excellence Award. Alicia received an associate of arts degree in business in 1992 and has several advanced training certificates from ATD and Langevin Learning Services, including master trainer, performance consultant, and advanced eLearning instructional design.
LS405 Ten Tips for Producing Better Audio
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM Wednesday, March 16
Palm 3
Most corporate and adult continuing education eLearning courses include audio tracks, mostly as voiceover, but also for animated characters. As a result, many eLearning professionals find themselves writing audio scripts as part of their work. What are the skills needed to produce better audio?
In this session, you will learn 10 tips for producing better eLearning audio. Each tip aims to make your eLearning course much more engaging, improving retention. You will learn the science behind the methods that will help you improve your script writing, recording, and editing to better ensure improved learner performance after completing your courses.
In this session, you will learn:
- Seven tips for writing better scripts
- The cognitive psychology behind why these seven methods work
- Three tips for recording and editing audio tracks
- How to use aural techniques to capture and retain the attention of learners
Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers and developers.
Technology
discussed in this session:
Adobe Audition, Audacity, recorders, and other audio recording and
editing software and hardware.
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Stephen Haskin
Principal
Industrial Strength Learning
Stephen Haskin, the principal of Industrial Strength Learning, started in video production and computing in the 1970s. He has worked with digital video and eLearning since the late 1980s, and has been at the forefront of streaming media. Previously, Stephen was a producer and director of film and video and won many awards for his work. He worked for the University of Michigan for several years, but has now returned to the private sector where he currently directs and consults for distance-learning projects and video. Stephen frequently speaks at conferences and seminars, is the author of three books, and is writing a fourth book about media and learning.
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Jennifer De Vries
President
BlueStreak Learning
Jennifer De Vries is the president and chief solutions architect at BlueStreak Learning. Jennifer, a CPT, has over 25 years of experience managing eLearning programs for companies such as IBM and Motorola. She frequently writes about eLearning for industry journals and is best known for her groundbreaking report, Rapid E-Learning, published by Bersin & Associates. In 2010, Jennifer was named one of the 20 most influential people in online learning by Online University Rankings. In 2016, she was named Most Influential Woman in eLearning by Corporate America News. BlueStreak Learning focuses on helping organizations successfully start and grow high-quality, customer-focused eLearning programs.
LS410 Copyright Trends and Finding Media Gems
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM Wednesday, March 16
Hibiscus/Iris
Intellectual property law affects every stage of the development process. Yet it is daunting and complex. Trying to gain a working knowledge can be overwhelming. As a result, decision making is rooted in ignorance, fear, or frustration, none of which contributes to project goals. The continuing struggle to quickly develop content may lead you to infringe on someone else’s work, expose your work to an unpleasant legal action, or miss out on using free media to enhance your projects.
In this session, you will learn about copyright essentials through an entertaining snapshot of the law and recent cases. Learn how to protect your own work and apply legal concepts, such as the fair use doctrine, to everyday scenarios. You’ll become more confident finding sites that offer public domain, Creative Commons, and open access licensed works. Developing an applied understanding of copyright law and learning how to find media you can use will help you become more productive and focused as you maximize your financial and creative resources.
In this session, you will learn:
- Copyright law and fair use basics
- About recent and relevant court cases
- How to protect your work
- How to find online media you can use
- About Creative Commons licenses and which are most accommodating
- How to correctly attribute media you use
Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers,
and directors.
Technology
discussed in this session:
N/A
Participant
technology requirements:
Portable device.
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Barbara Waxer
Copyright & Media Educator
Seattle Film Institute
Barbara Waxer is a copyright and media educator, author, and trainer who teaches at the Seattle Film Institute and Santa Fe Community College. She has authored over two dozen textbooks and online products on copyright, finding and using media, writing for the web, and Adobe and Microsoft software. Her book, Internet Surf and Turf Revealed: The Essential Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Finding Media, won the TEXTY Textbook Excellence Award and the New England Book Show Award. Barbara thrives when developing best practices for users and creators of digital content.
LS602 Ten Creative Ideas to Change Your Design Vision
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Thursday, March 17
International South
eLearning and instructional professionals often have questions surrounding design vision, which is the range of motion of creative design ideas that they can incorporate visually into learning projects. Many find themselves struggling to be more creative and seek to extend their visual approaches to type, images, and composition. For the designer, more methods mean more opportunities to create better visual solutions for learning materials and content-driven courses.
In this session, you will learn 10 useful design ideas that can enhance your design thinking and expand your design vision for better learning and education products. You will learn unique and creative visual design approaches, and the contextual design processing abilities that are part of the critical skillset instructional designers need. You will explore various strategies useful in developing better type, images, and compositions to exploit visual creativity. You will learn to build your conceptual utility belts and will find new ways to enhance your content.
In this session, you will learn:
- Basic design thinking approaches embedded across design disciplines
- Contextual design methods to build user-centered content
- Strategies to use to develop better type, images, and compositions that exploit visual creativity
- Creative techniques to help boost visual concepts and strategies
- How to expand your design vision by adding 10 new design techniques
Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers,
and directors.
Technology
discussed in this session:
N/A
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John DiMarco
Associate Professor
St. John's University
John DiMarco is a communication arts professor, author, consultant, and designer. He helps people and organizations with technical, persuasive, and instructional communication. Professor DiMarco teaches both online and classroom courses at St. John’s University in New York City. His latest book, published by Pearson Learning, is titled:Career Power Skills. He is the author of Digital Design for Print and Web: An Introduction to Theory, Principles, and Techniques (Wiley 2010) and Web Portfolio Design and Applications (Idea Group 2006). John is the founder of PortfolioVillage.com and has worked on projects for Canon USA, GSK, Wiley, and St. John’s University.
LS706 Audio Post-production Made Easy and Cheap
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM Thursday, March 17
Kahili/Lily
Have you ever wished you could wave a magic wand to make your narrated voice work sound clean and crisp? Well, there is no magic wand, but a digital audio workstation (DAW) comes close. Broadcast professionals spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars creating their ideal audio post-production environment, but with careful planning you won’t need to spend a penny.
In this session, you will discover techniques and technologies which will enable you to create clean, authoritative, professional-grade audio for online presentations with a minimal impact on your budget. You will learn about digital audio techniques such as basic editing, compression, de-essing, gating, noise removal, and normalization—all using robust digital editing software you can get for free or as part of a software bundle. You will see how easy it is to import your professional-sounding audio files directly into your authoring software, with a small price tag to make your manager smile.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to acquire DAW (digital audio workstation) software with robust features for little or no cost
- How a DAW can be used to minimize or eliminate background noise (even including the barking dog down the street)
- How a DAW can be used to move or remove sounds at the phrase, word, and phoneme levels
- How a DAW can be used to emphasize or deemphasize frequencies in your voice, resulting in a bold, professional sound
- The next steps and resources on learning, practicing, and perfecting these skills
Audience:
Intermediate designers, developers,
and project managers.
Technology
discussed in this session:
Adobe Audition and Audacity.
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Kevin Lange
Principal Consultant
Immersion Learning
Kevin Lange is the principal consultant at Immersion Learning. Previously he was a learning governance and technology manager with The Mosaic Company. Since 2005, Kevin has worked as a facilitator, instructional designer, project and program manager, and learning strategist within academic, consulting, and Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies, including Capital One, Citi, Expedia, American Express, Deloitte, and Sony. Kevin holds bachelor's degrees in radio-television and speech communication from Southern Illinois University, an MBA from Indiana State University, and an MEd in educational technology from the University of Florida.
LS810 Improving Your Voiceover Performance for eLearning Narration
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM Thursday, March 17
Palm 3
Shrinking budgets and accelerated production schedules can make it difficult to leave room for professional voiceover narration for eLearning projects, and it’s often one of the first things cut. Unfortunately, skimping on quality narration can leave learners confused or distracted, which has a direct negative impact on their attention and retention.
In this session, you will explore the problems of costly and time-consuming professional voiceover narration by teaching you the skills you need to improve your performance. You will be able to provide quality narration in-house. You will learn that switching to in-house production results in significant money and time savings. Whether you are doing the eLearning narration or your employees are, this session teaches essential skills to improve performance. And freelancers will gain the skills and knowledge to offer professional-quality narration, allowing them to provide an all-in-one product to clients with no outsourcing.
In this session, you will learn:
- About the importance of breathing and techniques to improve it
- The best ways to warm up
- About enunciation, volume, tone, and inflection, and how it affects the end result
- Exercises you can do for just a few minutes every day that will improve your narration
- Three simple secrets that practically guarantee you’ll see an improvement in your narration in just two to three weeks
Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and
managers.
Technology
discussed in this session:
N/A
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Robin Castellanos
eLearning Designer and Developer
NextGen Healthcare
Robin Castellanos, an eLearning designer and developer at NextGen Healthcare, has over two decades of experience in voiceover narration, technical training, and curriculum design. Robin also provides voiceover narration to meet the eLearning needs of a wide variety of clients including, Bayer, Proctor and Gamble, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the National Center for Construction Education and Research.
LS905 Designing with Animation
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM Friday, March 18
International South
Animation is a powerful tool for creating engaging eLearning experiences. Sadly, most animations are used without purpose as a design embellishment. When this happens, the use of animation distracts the learner from the content, rather than helping to elevate the content.
In this session, you will explore how animation can be used with purpose to create meaningful and engaging eLearning experiences. This session will demonstrate multiple before and after examples, where you can learn how animation can be used to explain complex ideas and create valuable learning content. You will learn how to use animation with purpose to provide meaning to your learning content. You will learn how to elevate your eLearning content through the use of animation.
In this session, you will learn:
- How animation affects the learning process
- How to use animation with purpose to bring meaning to learning content
- The various types of animations used within eLearning
- How to explain complex ideas and processes through the use of animation
Audience:
Novice to advanced designers and developers.
Technology
discussed in this session:
N/A
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Tim Slade
Creator
The eLearning Designer's Academy
Tim Slade is a speaker, author, award-winning freelance eLearning designer, and creator of The eLearning Designer's Academy. Having spent the last decade working to help others elevate their eLearning and visual communications content, Tim has been recognized and awarded within the eLearning industry multiple times for his creative and innovative design aesthetics. Tim is also a regular speaker at international eLearning conferences, a recognized Articulate Super Hero, and author of "The eLearning Designer's Handbook."