I get a lot of questions about whether or not to add background music to elearning courses.  That’s like answering whether or not you should put a blue square in your course.  If the blue square makes it a better course, “Yes.”  If not, then get rid of the square.  The same is true for background audio.  It all depends on the context.

Instructional Design 101

Instructional design is about crafting a learning environment to meet specific objectives.  Nothing in your course should be accidental or haphazard.  All elements that make up the course should be intentional.  In that sense you need to ask if the audio you are using will add to or detract from the learning objectives.

When does Audio Detract from the Learning?

Some people like to add background audio to their courses because they know that by itself the course content is somewhat boring.  So adding some background audio will jazz it up a bit and makes the course exciting and inviting.

Guess what?  If the course is boring, adding audio will only make it boring and danceable.  You’re best served to spend your time designing the right type of course and spending less time looking for ways to “jazz it up.”

 

The course’s goal is to help your learner learn.  So when you add audio to the course it should contribute to the learning.  In a previous post, I shared a little about cognitive load and how to get your learners to remember more.  If the audio doesn’t help, then it offers little value; or worst case, it actually diminishes the value.

• Background audio might impact your working memory.  Background audio might conflict with other information.  Adding too much information at once might overload the brain’s processing.  This impacts how well the learner can recall the information in the course.  It probably makes sense to skip this type of audio on crucial learning segments where retention is critical. 
• Multiple audio tracks can impact retention.  Some studies suggest that combining narration, ambient audio, and background music can impact retention.  This makes sense because you’re giving the brain a lot of audio information to process at the same time.
• Narration and background audio aren’t the same things.  With narration the risk is that you are sharing information that competes with information that the learner is processing visually.  Background audio is not the same since it has no informative value.  My guess is that the brain quickly learns to filter it, the same why I do to my kids when I watch boxing.  That’s why I wouldn’t get too dogmatic about background audio in all circumstances. 

Your ultimate goal is to craft the best learning experience.  If the audio adds no value, you’re probably better off getting rid of it than adding it to the course.  With that said, some courses are only designed to share information.  In those cases, you could probably be a little more liberal in your use of audio than if your goals are real retention and improved performance.  In either case, it should not detract from the course content.

When Does Audio Add Value?

Multimedia learning is relatively new and the way we craft elearning is changing.  We have everything from the standard page turners to immersive learning games and activities.  Because of this, the principles aren’t always the same.  What you might apply to a static page with text and narration isn’t going to be the same for a much more interactive activity where retention is more critical.

• Ambient audio contributes to an immersive experience.  A role playing scenario is different than specific, step-by-step instructions.  In that case, there’s probably some value in using audio to create a more immersive experience.  Think of setting the scene where someone is working in a hurried environment with a lot going on…like an emergency room.  The proper use of audio and visual design can contribute to creating the right type of situation and context. 
• Background audio can create emotional cues.  Think of a movie like Jaws.  Probably the most memorable part of Jaws is the sound track.  In some ways it acted as a narrator.  The music kept us at the edge of our seats, telling us, “Be careful, there’s something coming.”  There’s no reason why elearning courses can’t employ a similar use of background audio to provide some emotional cues and hooks.
• Music can contribute to changed behavior.  There are some studies that suggest certain types of music at set beats per minute can influence how the brain receives information.  Perhaps there’s some value in adding a baroque audio track to certain types of elearning courses.  Here’s a site with some links if you want to read more about music and the brain.

How are other industries using audio? I already mentioned the movie industry as an example.  But you can also glean some ideas from the gaming industry or multimedia news and documentaries.  I like the audio slide shows that the New York Times produces. 

 

Click here to view the New York Times demo.

This one starts with a door slam.  It pulls you right in and sets the stage.  Then listen to some of the ambient background audio.  While it’s subtle, it all adds to the emotional value of the piece because it puts you there.  Without the ambient audio, it would lose some of the emotional edge and be a much more sterile and probably less personal piece. 

The same is true for your elearning course.  There are some courses and topics that can benefit from good ambient or background audio.  Next time you’re doing analysis and meeting with learners, stop and listen to what it sounds like where they work.  Is there a way you can bring that sound into your course?     

Things to Consider

There’s so much variety to elearning and the types of courses that are produced it’s hard to be dogmatic about when and where to use background audio.  The main point is less about the audio and more about your intention.  Once you know what you want to do, then you decide when and where audio fits in.

• Each element of the course should contribute to the learning.  Don’t add audio for the sake of audio.  Everything you add to the course from the multimedia content to the activities should exist to satisfy the learning objectives.
• Keep the content relevant.  The more relevant the content is to the learner, the more apt they are to pay attention.  When it’s not relevant, no amount of background music will “jazz it up.” 
• People are complex.  While cognitive load theory is an important consideration in course design, we need to be careful not to be too dogmatic about its application.  The brain is complex and sometimes the cognitive load discussion seems to be too simple and applied with a broad brush.  Like all learning theories, they’ll be refined over time.  I see them more as considerations and principles to guide design and less as steadfast rules. 

I like the story Malcolm Gladwell tells of the early days of Sesame Street in the Birth of Big Bird.  The scientific advisors (probably steeped in sound research) warned against mixing fantasy and reality.  If the founders had gone with that advice, the show would have died.  Instead, they did mix them and the show proved successful.

There’s probably a lesson in there for us.  To learn more about multimedia in elearning and the effective use of audio, it might help to step away from the elearning industry and look at other disciplines that use multimedia, like the advertising, gaming, and movie industries.  What can we learn from them?

I’d love to hear how you’re using audio in your courses.  Got any tips and tricks?  Feel free to share them by clicking on the comments link.

The tendency when working with PowerPoint is to start with the template structure.  This works fine if you want to create quick presentations.  The problem with that approach is you tend to get slides full of bullet points.

To get the most out of PowerPoint and build the best elearning courses requires thinking of PowerPoint in a different way.  You have to think outside of the template and bullet point box.

In a previous post, I showed how to expand your PowerPoint skills by creating custom illustrations.  In today’s post we’ll build on that.  I’m going to show how to build a television graphic in PowerPoint.

Before we get started, take a look at the example below.  I built the television set in PowerPoint and then added a clip art image to create a clickable remote control.

Click here to play the demo.

The envelope icon exercise and this television set tutorial help you work with the PowerPoint features outside of the template structure.  By practicing these types of techniques you’ll learn to get more out of PowerPoint and think about what you can do with it from a different perspective. It helps you step away from reliance on the templates and bullet points.

Recently, I ran across a series of tutorials on Vectips.com by Ryan Putnam.  He does nice work and shares some of his expertise through the tutorials.  While his tips are for those who use Illustrator, many of them can be applied to PowerPoint.

Inspired by Ryan’s tips, I’m going to show you how to create a television icon for your elearning course using PowerPoint.

Click here to watch the Screenr tutorial.

 

1. Create the television set body.

The set is made up of three rounded rectangle shapes and a gradient fill.

• Add a rounded rectangle with gradient fill to be the main body of the set.
• Create another rounded rectangle for the outer edge.  Use no fill and a gradient border that is the same as the box.  Make the light gray a bit lighter so it stands out.
• For the screen, duplicate the border box.  Make the line thicker and flip it so it is the opposite of the set with the lighter gray on the bottom.

2. Create color bars & shimmer.

 

The color bars are a grouped set of colored rectangles with a 60% transparent shape to give it a gel look.

• Create the color bars by combining a series of rectangle shapes and filling with the colors.  Group them and then move onto the set behind the frame.
• The shimmer is a bit trickier.  Take a rectangle and convert it to a freeform and then edit the points to give it a curve.  Fill it with white and 60% transparent.

3. Add the television set details.

The television set’s accessories are just basic shapes with simple gradient fills.

• Knobs: Create a circle and use the same gradient fill as the set.  Duplicate the circle, flip it, and scale it down.  Create a rounded rectangle with a lighter gray.  Use the alignment tool to align them. Group the knob and add to the set.
• Grills: Create a rounded rectangle and fill with a gradient.  Duplicate them and use the alignment tool to distribute them equally.
• Feet: Create a rectangle and add a gradient with a lighter center and darker edges.

Now you have a completed television set created entirely in PowerPoint.  It’s a great display for those times where you want to add a video to your elearning course.

Bonus tips:

• I opted for a squared TV window rather than rounded since the videos have a squared border.  This helps them sit in the frame better.
• Group the TV and save as an .emf and then bring it back in as a picture.  This way it’s a single object and easier to work with.  You’ll still have it as a vector image if you need to make changes.  
• Get rid of the dials and just have a big screen to give you more real estate for the video.
• If you build the TV using the theme colors in PowerPoint 2007, you can quickly change the color of your television set when you apply a new color theme.

To help you deconstruct the file, I’ve attached the original PowerPoint file.  Download it here. Feel free to use it as you wish.  Also, send a nice message to Ryan and let him know how much you appreciate his tutorials.

If you experiment with some of these ideas, send them my way.  I’d love to see what you can come up with. Also, if you have some other tips and tricks, share them by clicking on the comments link.

In case you missed it:

For those of you who use the Articulate products you might find these two recent posts on the Word of Mouth blog useful.

• 101 Rapid E-Learning Tutorials
• Here’s a Boatload of Free E-learning Tutorials

 

In a recent post, I showed how to easily create your own silhouette characters.  Today I share show some ways to use those silhouettes in your elearning courses.  Something to keep in mind is that the silhouette doesn’t need to be confined to people.  You can use them on objects, as well.

Create a Progress Meter

As a visual cue, use silhouette characters or objects to create a progress meter.  As the learners advance, the silhouettes change to real images.  This lets them see their progress through their course and where they’re currently at.

Create Section Breaks

Use silhouettes as a way to divide sections within the course.  In the example below from Helmsmanship, you can see that the start of the section has the image and shares a core idea or theme.  The following slides contain a silhouette of the core section image.

Isolate Information

Silhouettes are great to draw the learner’s focus and isolate information.  For example, in the first image I introduce a group.  However, when I want to focus on just one character, I use silhouettes and only show the character of interest.

Create Contrast

A great way to get a person’s attention is to create contrast.  This is easy to do with silhouettes.  I like the example below from a Goodwrench ad.  By removing the car, you can tell something’s missing.  You can apply the same effect to an elearning course. 

First, the contrast draws your attention.  Second, it can become a mechanism to find out what’s missing.

Be Politically Correct

It never fails that when you build elearning courses, HR shows up to make sure no one’s offended.  While there’s obviously a lot of value in diversity, it can still be one of the most frustrating parts of building courses as you navigate which ethnicity gets to represent the good manager and who gets to be the bad example.  A good way to work around this is to use silhouettes for your characters.  This way you can be race and gender neutral and make sure no one’s offended.

Creating silhouettes is pretty easy.  And using them in your elearning courses can add a little bit more visual intrigue and help make your courses more engaging.  What are some other examples of how you’d use silhouettes?  Click on the comments link to share them with us.

Also, I’ll be at DevLearn is San Jose this week.  If you’re there, swing by the Articulate booth and say “Hello.”

There’s a lot of debate about interactivity in elearning.  You have some people who think elearning is not valid unless it has a high level of interactivity.  Anything that’s not interactive is just a “boring click-and-read course.”  On the other hand, there are a lot of people who equate interactivity with nonsensical games.  So to them, any interactivity is just extra time and expense. 

I’ve worked with clients who thought interactivity was adding a rollover or slick animations.  They’d “ooh” and “aah” over the dumbest things.  It was easy to mask poor instructional design with cool effects and animations.  On the flip side, it’s easy to go overboard and build a lot of interactivity, that while interactive, isn’t really necessary or effective.

I was at a conference once where someone was demoing an elearning course.  It was integrated with a game.  The goal was for the learner to master levels in the game to get to new pieces of information.  While the game was pretty cool, it was out of context for the learning.  Since the game was irrelevant to the learning objectives, I’d agree with one of the bystanders who said that it “was expensive and a waste of time.”

A common challenge we face in building courses is that the content owner has put a lot of effort into creating the content (like a 300 slide presentation) and is reluctant to lose any of the data or look at ways to rework it and make it more interactive because to them, everything is equally important.

In fact, when I get emails asking about interactivity, it usually involves the person trying to convince a customer or subject matter expert to make their courses more interactive.  I usually advise them to take a step back and build a foundation for the discussion about interactivity. 

All E-learning Projects Are Not Equal

The first thing I like to address is that not all elearning projects are the same.  Some are designed around only sharing information.  They don’t have any performance expectations tied to them.  How you approach interactivity in this type of course is a lot different than what you’re going to do in a course where you have very clear performance expectations and are looking for specific results.

 

There’s also a big difference between a project commissioned by a high level executive who has $100,000 or more to spend and the ones most of us have to build.  So, while you have a whole gamut of interactivity to choose from, you still have to work within the context of your skills and resources. 

The good thing is that even if you’re working with just PowerPoint, you can still build effective levels of interactivity.  You just don’t have the same programming capabilities.

Here’s a simple way to look at interactivity.  It doesn’t represent a progression of interactivity.  Instead it’s more like three ways to view interactive content.  This is how I usually discuss it with my subject matter experts and clients.

Design an Interactive Look & Feel

If you’ve ever gone to a Broadway play, I’m sure you’ve walked way amazed at the brilliance of the set design and what they can do to pull you into their story, except for Cats, of course. In the same way, when you build your course, you have to determine how to pull the learner into the “story.”  You’re the set designer. 

Look at the image below.  At this point we don’t see any interactivity.  Which screen is more inviting?  Couple the right graphics with an interactive user interface and you have the foundation for a good course.

You’re responsible for crafting the ambience and feel of the course that draws the learner in.  This is all part of the user interface and visual design.  Everything from colors, images, and animations.  All of the rollovers, effects, and transitions contribute to the look and feel of the course.  How your learner interacts with the screen elements is part of the course’s interactivity.  It’s not the critical part, but it does play a key role in how the course is perceived.  And for many people, perception is reality.  It’s a great way to have your learner get into the content rather than just hearing and seeing it.

Create Exploratory Content

Most people don’t learn in a linear fashion.  They tend to explore their environment.  In fact, exploration is a critical part of learning.  Despite this, many elearning courses do two things that are contrary to what’s best for learning: force learners on a linear path and lock navigation that doesn’t allow for exploration.

I know that there are times when you’re required to lock the course navigation.  In those cases, you do what you have to do.  However, most of the times the rationale for locking navigation is misguided. 

Click here to view the demo.

Even if you have to lock the navigation, there’s no reason you can’t at a minimum throw in something like an Engage interaction or something else that allows the learner to click around on the screen and collect information.  The example above is from a previous blog post.  Something like this could be inserted on a single slide.  What would be five slides of information could be one slide with five areas for the learner to explore.

If you want them to learn, free up the navigation and let them discover information.  They’ll feel empowered and more in control.  And that sets the stage for better learner.

Provide a Reason to Use the Information

Regardless of the technology you use, whether a rapid elearning application or action script and Flash, the essential part of interactivity is relevance.  In fact, the more relevant the content is, the less you have to rely on interactivity because you’re better able to tap into the learner’s motivation.

Considering relevance, what you want is an environment where they need to do something based on what they should understand about the information in the course.  A great way to do this is to just “throw them into the pool,” so to speak. 

Are you teaching them about a new policy?  Give them a situation where the policy applies and let them work through it, with your course as a guide. 

Teaching them math? Give them a reason to use math.  Want them to learn some history?  Make them a character of the time and have them deal with the issues critical to that time period.  The subject shouldn’t limit what you can do.  If it’s something that needs to be learned, there’s a reason why.  Use that reason as the basis for the interaction.

Click here to view the ergonomics demo.

One of my favorite examples of a simple, yet interactive rapid elearning course is the one above, created by the crew at Prometheus.  It’s an ergonomics course and they used the Engage interactions (that most people use just to share information) as self-assessment tools.  The learner has to assess her personal ergonomics and then interact with the course content.  It’s an effective use of a rapid elearning tool to do more than click and read.

Your Limitation is Creativity Not Technology

There’s a difference between my neighbor’s Mercedes and my Nissan.  Considering that I paid about 20% of what he paid, I don’t expect the same product.  However, if I need to go from one place to the next, my solution works just fine.

The same is true when it comes to your elearning course.  Even if all you have to use is PowerPoint, there’s no reason why you can’t build some level of effective interactivity for your elearning course.  In fact, if you are going to be at the DevLearn conference next week, check out David Anderson’s course at the DemoFest.

We gathered deep inside the Articulate labs and built a mock up of what we like to call the rapid situational interactive (RSI) model. The challenge we set was one that many people face.  No budget. No time. And lots of boring click and read content.  How do we take that and quickly create an effective elearning course?  Come check it out.  It’s all PowerPoint and basically cycles through two slides.

As I said earlier, interactivity can mean many things and what you can do depends on your budget.  With all that said, there’s really no reason why even a simple low budget course can’t have interactive elements.  What tips do you have for those who want their elearning courses to be more interactive? Share them with us, by clicking on the comments link.

If you liked this, you might like these:

• Maybe All Your Learner Needs Is a Baby Shower

• Go Beyond Information Sharing – 5 Ways Your E-learning Courses Can Create Understanding

• Are You Building the Right Type of E-Learning Course?

If you’re at this week’s Educause Conference in Denver, swing by the Articulate booth to say “Hi” and pick up a Captain Smiley.

Managing elearning projects requires good communication between the instructional designers and subject matter experts.  In most cases, this communication happens via email.  Thus, better email communication ultimately leads to better project management, which most likely means better elearning courses.

At a recent ASTD conference, I ran into Mike Song, the author of The Hamster Revolution.  It’s a book on how to effectively manage emails.  Mike gave me a free copy which I skimmed through on the plane flight home.

It’s a quick read and very practical, but I’ll have to admit, I kind of ignored it until I saw a funny video on Youtube a couple of weeks ago.  The video is of a presentation at Ignite Boise, one of those fun 5 minutes and 20 slide events.  The title is “You Don’t Know How to Email.”  Check it out.

Click here to view the video.

At about the 1:48 mark, Erik introduces his friend Dan and Dan’s emails.  It’s both funny and eye-opening.  After watching the video, I looked through my sent emails and sure enough, there were dozens that began with “Hey…” 

I am Dan!  And perhaps you’re Dan, too. 

Here’s the deal, if you’re swamped with emails, so are your co-workers, manager, and most important your clients and subject matter experts.  By following some of the tips from the Hamster book, you’ll communicate better, your subject matter experts will be happier, and you’ll do a better job managing your emails.

Use Descriptive Titles in Your Email Subject

In the book, Mike recommends that you use categories to provide context to the email subject line.  Look at the image below.  “Action” is one of his recommended categories.  It alerts the reader that there’s an action item associated to the email.

Outside of the Action category, you can also see that the there’s enough information in the subject line to let the reader know the email’s important and requires a response.  A descriptive subject line communicates clearly and is a lot easier to search, as well.

Just this tip alone will make your subject matters happy.  But wait, there’s more.

Email is Money

As Erik in the Youtube video said, “Time is money.  Email takes time.  So email is money.”  Everyone’s busy; so you need an easy way to clearly communicate and manage emails.  Below is an example of a typical email.   

This email is kind of typical of the types of emails we get.  They can be a bit long-winded and pointless.  It’s hard to quickly pull out the important information.  And the action items (if any) are not clearly discerned.

Reviewing the email above, you’ll notice a few key issues:

• The subject line is not specific so you’re not quite sure if the email is critical or not
• The formatting of the email makes it hard to quickly scan
• It’s difficult to identify any action items
• The key points are not easily found
• Expectations and next steps are not clear

Break the Body of the Email into Three Sections

As I mentioned earlier, a good email starts with a specific subject line.  This helps the reader know the purpose of the email and what’s expected.  From there, you implement the A-B-C approach which is:

• Action summary: Think of this like the abstract of the email.  It’s a quick summary of what you expect the reader to do based on the email. 
• Background: This is the body of your email.  Use bullet points or numbers to focus on key points.  It’s an email, not Salinger’s next great novel.
• Close: This is where you can add incidental notes that might distract at the beginning of the email.  And you can also highlight some expected next steps.

Now let’s compare the email below to the one above.  It’s essentially the same email, only by using the A-B-C approach you’re able to quickly get to the point, focus on what’s important, and identify any expectations or pending actions.

 

I think you’ll agree that the format of the second email makes communicating with your subject matter experts a lot easier.  Odds are that you’ll exchange a lot less email and that your projects will run much better. 

So if you’re inbox is overrun with emails, there’s hope.  It just takes a little practice.  You’ll have less email stress and your subject matter experts will love you.  What tips do you have to make managing the emails for your elearning projects easier?  Share them with us, by clicking on the comments link.

If you liked this post, you’ll probably like these:

• How to Get The Most Out Of Your Subject Matter Experts

• What Everyone Should Know About Working with Subject Matter Experts

• 5 Secret Tips from an E-Learning Pioneer

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Tidbits:

I’ll be at the Educause Conference in Denver next week.  If you happen to be there, swing by the Articulate booth and say “Hi.”  The following week, I’ll be at DevLearn 2009 in San Jose.