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77 TIPS ON TODAY’S

HOTTEST TOPICS

FROM DEVLEARN

THOUGHT LEADERS

77 TIPS ON TODAY’S HOTTEST TOPICS FROM DEVLEARN THOUGHT LEADERS

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Sharon Boller on Common Game Design Mistakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Melissa Chambers on Design for the Virtual Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Julie Dirksen on Human Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

David Ferguson on Job Aids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Karen Hyder on the Uniqueness of the Virtual Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Pooja Jaisingh on eLearning Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Karl Kapp on Developing Learning Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Mark Lassoff on Using Story and Characters in Learning Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Connie Malamed on Virtual Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Koreen Pagano on Learning Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Clark Quinn on Cognition and How the Brain Learns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Kirsten Rourke on Adobe Creative Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Lou Russell on Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Kevin Siegel on Adobe Captivate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Tim Slade on eLearning 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Megan Torrance on Agile Project Management and Using Humor in eLearning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Table of Contents

1 www.eLearningGuild.com


Each year there’s one event that the global learning and performance community looks towards to showcase

the most innovative applications of learning technologies and engage in discussions that help shape what’s

next in the world of learning. That event is DevLearn.

DevLearn is the place where the industry’s foremost thought leaders and innovative doers gather to

connect, share, and challenge each other. It’s where the most creative energy in our field gathers to examine

the possibilities of today and shape the opportunities of tomorrow. It’s also the place we host a series of

workshops that take deep dives into many of the most important competencies in our field.

In this eBook, we explore 77 tips provided to us by the members of The eLearning Guild community who

will be leading workshops on these topics at the DevLearn 2015 Conference & Expo. These experts explore

critical topics and skills for today’s learning and performance professionals, among them:

• Sharon Boller on Common Game Design Mistakes

• Melissa Chambers on Design for the Virtual Classroom

• Julie Dirksen on Human Behavior

• David Ferguson on Job Aids

• Karen Hyder on the Uniqueness of the Virtual Classroom

• Pooja Jaisingh on eLearning Design

• Karl Kapp on Developing Learning Games

• Mark Lassoff on Using Story and Characters in Learning Games

• Connie Malamed on Virtual Design

• Koreen Pagano on Learning Metrics

• Clark Quinn on Cognition and How the Brain Learns

• Kirsten Rourke on Adobe Creative Cloud

• Lou Russell on Project Management

• Kevin Siegel on Adobe Captivate

• Tim Slade on eLearning 101

• Megan Torrance on Agile Project Management and Using Humor in eLearning

I hope that you enjoy this eBook and find many of the tips to be useful in your work. I want to thank the

DevLearn workshop facilitators listed above, without whose contributions this eBook would not have been

possible. I also want to thank you for taking the time to read this eBook, and for being a valuable part of The

eLearning Guild community.

David Kelly

Vice President, Program Development

The eLearning Guild

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Common Game Design Mistakes

Sharon BollerSharon Boller is the president and chief product officer of Bottom-Line Performance (BLP), a learning-

solutions firm she founded in 1995. Sharon has grown BLP from a single-woman sole proprietorship to a $3

million+ company with 30 team members. Under her direction, BLP created the Knowledge Guru learning

game platform, a platform that has received numerous industry awards, including the coveted Brandon Hall

Gold award for best innovation in gaming and technology (2014). Sharon co-teaches Guild Academy’s Game

Design live online course.

Novice learning game designers often make a couple of common mistakes that really hinder learning

outcomes:

1. They overcomplicate their game with too many rules. Learners’ brains get maxed out on

remembering rules and have little space left over to learn the content or skills taught in the game.

2. They make their game cover too much content and too many learning objectives. Learners end up

being overwhelmed.

How do you keep yourself from making these two mistakes? Consider these guidelines:

• Keep game complexity proportional to the amount of time you expect players to spend playing

it. If you’re planning for a game that should only take 15 minutes, then it has to be really simple to

learn and its focus needs to be quite narrow. Here’s an example of a very short game associated

with a large curriculum on information asset protection. The game goal is to shoot down all the bad

passwords. The learning goal is to distinguish weak from strong passwords (see

http://www.bottomlineperformance.com/passwordblaster). That’s it.

• Play test a few different times and keep tweaking the game mechanics to find the sweet spot. It’s

easier to add game mechanics (aka rules) than it is to have to peel them away, so start with less and

add more if you need to.

• Let the game be really good at helping players learn one or two things, rather than trying to make

it big enough to teach everything. Too much content typically means learners retain very little of

anything. People tend to stuff too much content into review games, in particular. Learners do best

with small chunks of content at a time. You can always organize your game into levels or rounds and

add content to later rounds or to replay sessions. You don’t have to cover everything with a single

game play session.



Melissa ChambersMelissa Chambers is an online instructional specialist at MSC Consulting, a contract speaker coach/host for

The eLearning Guild’s Online Forums, and instructor for Guild Academy. Melissa has over 19 years’ experience

in creative media production, project and change management, online instructional design, and eLearning

strategy development, and has been designing, producing, and coaching for synchronous online programs

since 2002. She holds a master’s degree in instructional design for online learning, and has spearheaded

award-winning programs in eLearning, process improvement, and strategic development. Melissa has a

passion for lifelong learning, technology, cultivating creativity, and having fun while working.

• Scripting what, how, and when to say things is more important than ever for a live, online training.

Don’t ever assume participants will know how to interact using the tools.

• Time delivering an activity online is different from time delivering the same activity face to face.

Online, everything requires instructions and setup, and you need to take that into consideration as

part of adapting the traditional classroom to online instruction.

• Design with the facilitator in mind, not just the learners. It’s not just about showing up, presenting

content, and facilitating discussion. Online delivery is also about the facilitator being comfortable

with the tools required to engage participants. Design to the comfort level of those involved with

the delivery, both participants and instructors.

• It’s not the tool; it’s the instructional design that creates a foundation for a good learning experience

online. Don’t let the tool limit you, but also don’t let the feature/functionality of the tool lure you into

bad design. It’s not polling for polling’s sake. First decide on the right type of instructional activity;

from there identify the right tool to deliver the activity.

Design for the Virtual Classroom



Julie DirksenJulie Dirksen is a consultant and instructional designer with more than 15 years’ experience creating highly

interactive eLearning experiences for clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to technology startups to

grant-funded research initiatives. She’s interested in using neuroscience, change management, and persuasive

technology to promote sustainable long-term learning and behavior change. Her MS degree in instructional

systems technology is from Indiana University, and she’s been an adjunct faculty member at the Minneapolis

College of Art and Design. She is the author of Design For How People Learn.

• When you’re trying to change behavior, look for misaligned incentives. For example, you might be

told that you need to train customer services people on how to make fewer errors, but right now

their primary performance standard is how many calls per hour they complete. If the incentive is for

speed, then training solutions will probably not fix an accuracy problem.

• For behavior change problems, look at how immediate the feedback is. Most of the behaviors we

struggle with (e.g., procrastination, eating well, exercising, and being disciplined about anything)

have a disconnect between the action and the consequence or the action and the reward. For

example, you don’t usually see the benefit of exercise right away—it might take several weeks before

you start feeling more fit. If feedback and reinforcement for a behavior isn’t going to happen for a

while, look at ways to make success or accomplishments visible sooner. For example, most of the

fitness tracking devices (e.g., Nike+, Fitbit) are designed to help give you a feeling of success and

accomplishment much sooner (“You hit your 10K step goal today!”).

• Social proof is one of the most powerful influencers of behavior. We look at the people around us for

cues how to act. It happens all the time whether we realize it or not. When you start a new job, you

spend the first few weeks looking for those cues: How should I dress? What kind of humor is OK? Do

people leave right at five? What do people do for lunch breaks? If you’re trying to inculcate a new

behavior in your organization, what can you do to make it visible to everyone? For example, can you

enlist opinion leaders to model the behavior, or can you feature success stories on the intranet?

Human Behavior



David FergusonDavid Ferguson is a curriculum designer for BC Pension Corporation. For 30 years, David has produced

training and performance support both as an internal and external consultant, helping people in jobs from

inventory management to highway engineering to jet engine sales. Among the companies he’s worked with

are Amtrak and GE.

I’m a tireless advocate of job aids, which store information external to a person and are used on the job both

to reduce memorization and to enable accomplishment. When you hear “job aid,” you probably think of

checklists or how-to guides, but not worked examples, which Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer define

as step-by-step demonstrations of how to perform a task or solve a problem. Like job aids, their purpose is

to enable accomplishment—in this case, the acquisition of skill and knowledge.

• Well-crafted worked examples can replace practice problems. You can include some unfinished

worked examples (which would make them completion problems) to help foster recall and

integration.

• It’s crucial that the examples look like work—meaning, realistic tasks that people perform on the

job. And by varying the structure of the examples—say, different types of customer requests or

problems—you encourage people to figure out what the examples have in common, which builds

mental models for the skills in question.

• An interactive worked example allows someone to vary the process and see the results, learning

by doing in a safe setting. And you can add a virtual coach to a recorded example—explaining the

reason behind some step being demonstrated.

• As with job aids, worked examples lower extraneous cognitive load (such as that from excessive or

poorly written explanations), which permits learners to concentrate on the intrinsic load—the true

challenges of the task.

Job Aids



Karen HyderKaren Hyder has been teaching trainer-training programs for virtual classes and coaching online presenters

since 1999. She has produced hundreds of online sessions, including for The eLearning Guild’s Online Forums,

Thought Leaders Webinars, and “Best of” Webinars. Karen uses the trainer competencies of CompTIA’s

Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+) to help technical trainers and subject-matter experts prepare for online

sessions, master online presentation skills, and engage learners throughout sessions. She frequently speaks at

industry events on using virtual classroom tools to support learning. Karen co-authored The eLearning Guild’s

Handbook on Synchronous eLearning, and authored Up and Running with WebEx Training Center for lynda.com.

• Don’t put your whole script on your slides. Use relevant images and key phrases as a jumping-off

point for the rest of the details.

• Your handout and your slides shouldn’t be the same file.

• Stop trying to replicate everything you did in the physical classroom. Just because you had eight

“turn-to-your-neighbor” activities, it doesn’t mean you need eight breakout activities. Get creative

with the tools and resources you have available now.

• Design for interactions. Participants don’t spontaneously interact or give any kind of feedback unless

they’re asked. Give clear technical instructions. If they don’t know how to use something, they won’t.

Uniqueness of the Virtual Classroom



Pooja JaisinghPooja Jaisingh, a senior eLearning evangelist at Adobe Systems, has worked for more than 12 years as a

teacher trainer, an eLearning instructional designer, and an eLearning evangelist for Adobe Systems. In all her

roles, Pooja promotes eLearning as a mode of delivery and she has created a host of eLearning courses. In her

current role, she conducts numerous seminars and workshops, educating folks about the features of Adobe

Systems’ eLearning products. Pooja holds a master’s degree in education and economics and a doctorate in

educational technology.

• When you’re creating an eLearning course for a global workforce, consider creating a location-aware

course, instead of creating multiple iterations of a single course, to cater to different languages and

content. Learners will only see the content relevant for their location, and the rest will be hidden

based on the actions set for their location. This will help you in easy deployment, tracking, and

maintenance of the course.

• If you have a little extra time and resources, try to make your eLearning courses responsive, so

that they can look and play well on desktops and tablets, as well as mobile devices. For the web,

responsive is already an important criteria, and very soon you’ll see that in the eLearning world too.

It’s about time we move from absolute (pixels) to relative (percentage) size and positioning of the

objects to make this magic happen. Even if you don’t have a strong requirement currently, it will

definitely help you be future-ready.

• Always start developing your graphics in a photo-editing tool, e.g., Adobe Photoshop. Don’t try to

insert raw (unedited/high-pixel/uncropped) images inside your eLearning authoring tool. Though

it will do the job for you, it will make your project bloated and might not give you the best output.

Use a specialized tool to create your graphic assets, and then import them to your eLearning tool.

Whenever and wherever possible, use a specialized tool.

• Optimize your graphics for web use before importing them to your eLearning authoring tool. Add

this step to the must-do list if learners will be taking the course on tablets or smartphones. This

will make your course lightweight with optimal quality graphics. Also, make sure to resize/crop the

images to the exact required size before publishing them to be used in your eLearning authoring tool.

eLearning Design



Karl KappKarl M. Kapp is a professor of instructional technology at Bloomsburg University, where he teaches game design

and gamification classes. Karl also serves as the director of Bloomsburg’s Institute for Interactive Technologies.

He has authored or co-authored six books, including The Gamification of Learning and Instruction. Karl co-

teaches Guild Academy’s Game Design live online course, and is author of two Lynda.com courses, including the

Gamification of Learning. He is a co-founder of the educational game company 2Klearning.com, the founder of

the educational consulting firm the Wisdom Learning Group, and a TEDx speaker.

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you develop your learning game.

• Design the learning game to meet specific instructional objectives.

• Embed the learning game into a curriculum using the following structure: Set up the game and tell

learners what they will learn, then allow them to experience the game and when the game is over.

Debrief learners to highlight the learning aspects of the game.

• Keep rules, scoring, and leveling simple. Complicated games confuse and frustrate learners.

• Get learners comfortable with the rules and game play before they start. If the game does seem

complicated or is tough to get started, provide a tutorial round or a practice round that doesn’t

count for scoring, leveling, or winning. Or create a short video explaining how to play the game.

• Don’t focus the game on “winning” only. Games are emotional and people don’t like to lose. A

disappointing or frustrating experience can occur if a learner loses early. He or she may then check

out of the experience. Focus on learning outcomes.

• If possible, create the game so learners must work in groups. Groups facilitate learning better than

individual game play.

• As much as possible, the cognitive activities in the game should match the cognitive activities on

the job. The closer the two match, the better the learning transfer.

• Plan for replayability. Games for learning are most effective when multiple sessions are involved.

• Make the game interactive; focus on player activities. Passive game play is no better instructionally

than a lecture.

• Determine metrics ahead of time. Decide how you’re going to measure the effectiveness of the

game before you design the game.

• Winning should primarily be a result of knowledge acquisition or creation. While good games need

chance and random events, the winning state should be the result of learning.

Developing Learning Games



Mark LassoffMark Lassoff is the founder and president of LearnToProgram Media, a company that produces online courses

that teach web, mobile, and game development. Writing his first programs on a Commodore 64 at age 11,

Mark has been coding for over 25 years; more than 125,000 students have learned programming online from

him. Mark also writes the “Mobile, Tablet, and Laptop” column for Learning Solutions Magazine. His latest

book, PHP & MySQL for Beginners, is an Amazon bestseller.

Psychological Science published in 2011 that computer games are fun because they allow players to create a

“new identity—be it a different gender, hero, villain” and that “made them feel better about themselves and

less negative.” Integrating the essential elements of fun is important in learning games as well. Remember to

create a back story, and use characters that allow players to adopt new identities as they play and learn.

Using Story and Characters in Learning Games

DON’T LET YOUR LEARNING STOP HEREExplore over a hundred eLearning resources—including videos, tips,

tutorials, and more—contributed by people just like you! http://elgd.co/lx-dl15

LEARN SHARE DISCUSS CONNECT



Connie MalamedConnie Malamed is a consultant with Connie Malamed Consulting and an author and speaker in the fields of

online learning, visual communication, and information design. She has helped nonprofit, government, and

corporate clients transform their content into interactive learning experiences for more than 20 years. Connie

is the author of Visual Design Solutions and Visual Language for Designers and publishes The eLearning

Coach website and podcast. Connie holds an MA degree in instructional design.

Visual design and art are two different crafts. You can be effective at visual design without drawing well. Here

are some quick tips for improving the visual appeal and instructional effectiveness of your eLearning screens

and training slides.

• Gray is a neutral color with loads of elegance. It has many uses because of its softening effect. For

example, dark gray text on a white background has a little less contrast than black text on white.

Gray on white is soft. Black on white is sharp. If it doesn’t hamper the legibility, go with dark gray

text when you want an elegant look. On the other end of the spectrum, you can use light gray as a

subtle highlight. When you place light gray behind text, it brings a quiet attention to the words. Gray

helps you design beyond black and white.

• Subtractive design is a great way to declutter your screens or slides. To do this, remove all the

extraneous visual elements, one by one. As you remove each item, such as a noisy background or

an extra image, make sure you’re still communicating your intended message. Continue removing

elements up to the point where the design will break. When you’re finished, your screen or slide

should be easier for learners to process.

See the example in the next tip. In addition to demonstrating alignment, the graphic shows the use

of subtractive design. The slide on the left is too cluttered. The one on the right used the subtractive

approach to clean it up.

Virtual Design



• Use alignment to lay out a slide. Check out the work of professional designers and notice the ways

that elements are aligned with one another. For example, on a magazine cover you may see article

titles aligned to the left margin and another column of titles aligned to the right margin. Or on the

inner pages, you may see text aligned at the top with a photograph.

When you aren’t sure where to place something on the screen, align it with another element. It’s

easy if you use a grid. This technique will bring clarity to your design. See the example below. This

will bring clarity to your visual designs.

• Use eye gaze to direct the learner’s eyes. Remember all those times that you looked up in the sky

because everyone else was looking up? People can’t help but follow someone’s eye gaze. You can

take advantage of this phenomenon to direct the eyes of your audience. For example, if you want

learners to read an explanation before doing anything else, use a photograph or an illustration of a

person whose eyes are looking at the explanation. Of course, only do this when it makes sense in the

learning experience. See the example below.



• There are lots of ways to make something stand out, but one underused yet simple approach is

isolation. It involves placing a single person or a single object away from a group of people or objects.

Isolation provides contrast. And the human brain notices and assigns meaning to differences. In this

isolation example, adding an interesting shape to the background heightens the emphasis. If you

want to make the audience notice something, try isolation, if it will have meaning in your design.



Koreen PaganoKoreen Pagano is the director of enterprise product for lyndaCampus at lynda.com. Koreen helps people

learn more effectively. She advocates new ways of using technology for organizational learning, emphasizing

performance improvement and behavior change. She has strong ties to education, having received her MS

degree in curriculum and instruction from Penn State University. She helped start Freire Charter School in

1999, and founded Tandem Learning in 2008 to demonstrate the untapped potential of immersive learning

design. An internationally recognized speaker and organizational consultant, Koreen teaches graduate

courses at Harrisburg University, writes the blog Learning in Tandem, and authored the upcoming book

Immersive Learning.

• Identify the metrics that you want to impact before you start your design process. It makes it so

much easier to demonstrate the impact of a training initiative if you determine up front what you’re

hoping to achieve and can measure a baseline as well as post-training analysis.

• Communicate the value of your learning initiative in terms of not only learning metrics but also

performance and business metrics. The only people who care about learning metrics are typically

L&D professionals. Market your work by speaking the language that the rest of your organization

understands!

• Training isn’t complete without enabling people to practice what they’ve learned. Practice is the

bridge between knowledge and performance; make sure your training initiatives provide that bridge.

It’s so much better for people to fail in training where they can get feedback and learn from their

mistakes without risk, rather than fail on the job when it counts.

• We underestimate the impact of emotion and feelings on the learning experience, but if I asked

you your favorite song, you can sing it. If I ask you to tell me about your first car, you can visualize

it. Our senses help inform our memory, understanding, and connections between ideas more than

we realize. How is your training affecting learners’ emotions? Make it memorable by leveraging

characters, music, story ... boring is forgettable.

• We’re using biometrics to measure more and more about our health. Why aren’t we viewing

biometric data as another avenue for feedback on learning? I’m talking about heart rate, visual

focus, and kinesthetic feedback on how we’re performing in a task. Take a look at how biometrics

might give you essential feedback into the learning process. Technology is evolving and so should

our insight into the learning experience!

Learning Metrics



Clark QuinnClark Quinn is the executive director at Quinnovation, where he consults on performance systems architecture

and strategy. Clark combines a deep background in cognitive science with broad experience in technology,

delivering innovative and successful solutions for Fortune 500 organizations, government, not-for-profits, and

education. An in-demand presenter, Clark is also the author of numerous articles and three books, including

Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games and Designing mLearning: Tapping into the

Mobile Revolution for Organizational Performance. He is also senior director for interaction and mobile for

the Internet Time Alliance, helping organizations work smarter. Clark holds a PhD in cognitive psychology

from the University of California, San Diego. Clark was awarded the Guild Master Award in 2012 for his

accomplishments and contributions to the eLearning community.

• You want learners to be able to do new things, but owing to how our brains compile knowledge

away, SMEs can’t tell you 70 percent of what it is they do, so you have to work with them in specific

ways. Focus on the learners’ need to be able to do. A hint is to not talk about knowledge, but

instead focus on the decisions that learners need to be able to make. Ask SMEs: What do learners

need to be able to do better that they aren’t doing now? If they want to focus on knowledge, ask

about how that would play a role in what they do.

• Due to our cognitive architecture, we have a very limited amount of attention to focus on a

particular task. Learner attention can easily get distracted or overloaded. To help learners, it’s really

useful to minimize extraneous material so they can focus on the important elements. Unnecessary

media (including text) can actually interfere with learning. Also consider what makes this interesting

(here your SME is your ally; something’s made this interesting enough for the SME to become an

expert in it), and work that into the learning experience. This will help maintain motivation and,

consequently, attention.

• We learn by strengthening connections between related elements, and only so much strengthening

can happen in any one day before we literally need to sleep before more can be achieved. That’s

why an “event” model of learning has a low likelihood of actually leading to meaningful change.

Instead, learning needs to be spaced over time, with sufficient practice to achieve the retention we

require. Consider ways to reactivate learning at intervals after the initial learning presentation.

• There are several ways to strengthen the relationships between related elements that lead to

learning. We can represent the concept that guides performance, ideally in a new way. We can

present another example of applying the concept in a new context, which both helps establish

transfer to appropriate situations and, of course, supports greater retention. Or, best of all, we can

provide another opportunity for the learner to practice applying the concept in context. All these

Cognition and How the Brain Learns



activities, spaced over time, will support extending the learning, but, of course, the most important

is sufficient spaced practice.

• Learners’ mistakes are typically not random, and we need to acknowledge that when designing

practice. While there is some randomness in our architecture, most of our actions are guided by

models about how the world works, and most of our mistakes are made based upon incomplete or

inappropriate models. Our alternatives to the right answers, in practice, should reflect those different

ways learners go wrong, so we have a chance to address them before it matters. Two ways we go

wrong: (1) The alternatives to the right answer are silly or obviously wrong, and (2) we only have

one feedback for all the wrong answers. Instead, understand how learners go wrong in the particular

situations you’re designing for, and have those as alternatives to choose from. Then have feedback

that addresses those specific misconceptions.

• Our brains are oriented to stories, so stories are great tools in learning. Particularly, for example,

we’re best served by telling them as stories where there’s an obstacle, and what we considered as

solutions, what we tried, how it went, and ultimately how we succeeded and what the consequences

were. Several details have been shown to improve the value of examples: showing the underlying

thinking, step by step, and even showing mistakes and backtracking. Examples help learners in

multiple ways, and it’s worthwhile to help them see both accurate examples and others.

• The evidence is that the best guidance for performing, particularly in the increasingly uncertain

environment that rapid change is bringing us, are mental models. Rote performance isn’t a source

of value for individuals (there’s some randomness in our architecture), and we should be focusing

on helping people make better decisions. The ability to determine a valuable course of action

comes from an understanding of what’s happening and why, and causal models provide a basis for

prediction and explanation. The concepts that are applied in contexts, whether examples or practice,

should be rich explanations of what’s happening, i.e., a mental model. These may be hard to unearth,

but the effort pays off in better learner ability to perform.

• Although some anxiety about performance is actually useful in accelerating learning, the amount

varies by individual and generally isn’t very much at all. Too often we ignore any aversions to

learning experiences, when there are elements we can directly address and assist learners with.

Helping set expectations, having initial practice be simple enough to support success and gradually

increasing challenge, supporting learner motivation, and building confidence are all actions that can

and should be designed into learning experiences. Emotion is a part of the overall cognitive system,

and affects both learning and performance.

• Our cognitive architecture also affects us as designers. We’re prone to errors, such as set effects,

functional fixedness, and premature evaluation. What helps is following design processes that are

structured so as to minimize the likelihood of those problems. The greatest dangers are to work

alone, with a common tool, following a waterfall process, using a limited set of design templates.

Instead we need to work with others, avoid thinking about the implementation until we’ve thought

about the learner experience, and trial and iterate our designs, while regularly experimenting with

new approaches.

• Our brains are really good at pattern matching and meaning making, and really bad at remembering

rote and arbitrary information, particularly if it changes with some frequency. Yet too often, we try



to get people to remember large amounts of information on products or services, and it’s very hard

to do! Particularly when there’s a much better solution. For example, we can put information into the

world instead of into the head via lookup tables. There’s also some randomness in our architecture

(it’s valuable to support serendipitous outcomes), but expecting us to perform rote procedures

flawlessly is similarly problematic. Checklists, for example, have proven valuable to prevent errors in

aircraft and in medicine. The point is to not use courses except when they absolutely, positively have

to be “in the head.” Otherwise, consider creating performance support.

• When we look at something, we interpret it in a particular way. And that’s not always what was

intended (if you’ve ever designed learning for others, you may recognize how frustrating it can be to

see all the different ways learners can interpret what you thought was unambiguous!). While this can

be a bane in asynchronous learning, it can be a boon otherwise. Having learners find ways to share

interpretations strengthens learning through processing of those other interpretations, particularly

if you ask learners to find a resolution. This works even better if there’s a joint assignment and

learners need to come to an agreement on the solution, as they’re resolving both the understanding

and the application of that understanding. In short, social learning leads to more processing and

consequently better learning when it can be supported.



Kirsten RourkeKirsten Rourke, the owner of Rourke Computer Training, is a technical trainer and instructional designer

focusing on graphic design and eLearning products. She has worked internationally since 1998 and formed

Rourke Training in 2000. She uses her experience as an artist and her background in occupational therapy

in her training and instructional design work and her eLearning development. In her spare time, she co-hosts

a weekly podcast, eMediaChat, with Rick Zanotti, runs an Adobe user group in central Massachusetts, and

creates and runs Adobe conferences in Boston and central Massachusetts.

• Work across multiple CC products:

1. Create vector art in Illustrator, choose File, and then place it into Photoshop as a Smart Object.

2. Add Photoshop filters or other changes to the file and save as a PSD (Photoshop file).

3. Place the Photoshop file into InDesign (File > place or Ctrl/Cmd D).

4. If you edit the Photoshop or Illustrator art, you can quickly update the work in InDesign and see

all the changes.

• Control your sync settings in Illustrator or Photoshop:

1. Go to Preferences

• Edit > Preferences (Win) > Sync Setting

• Illustrator or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac) > Sync Settings

2. Choose what you want to remain in sync across computers

• Preferences

• Libraries

• Swatches, gradients, and patterns

• Brushes

• Symbols

• and more…

• Delete items from the Edge Animate Library panel:

You can’t directly delete items from the Library panel. You need to first remove all instances of the

item from the stage (if you don’t see them in the Elements panel, they’re all gone). Then you can

remove them (or move them) from the folder on your hard drive.

Adobe Creative Cloud



• Audition/Edge Animate:

Adding sound to your Edge animation? Use Audition to save your MP3 file as an OGG file. Edge

Animate will make a sound group from both and let older versions of Firefox use the OGG file when

needed.

1. In Audition, use Save As to create an OGG file in the same folder as your MP3 sound.

2. In the Edge Animate Library, use the plus (+) sign to add audio. Select both the MP3 and OGG

files and load them.

• Captivate 8:

Set your breakpoints for the most common devices that your users have. If they’re on laptops, iPads,

and iPhones, then target those. If they’re on Android devices, set the mobile view for that. Go to

http://viewportsizes.com to see information on device sizes.

• Captivate 8 responsive simulations:

To create a responsive software simulation you must first make a responsive project. Then add

Slide > Software Simulation inside it to have access to the responsive simulation options.

• Captivate:

Don’t forget to organize and clean your Library. Select “Unused Items” from the Library menu and

delete unneeded items to keep your working Captivate file size down. It’s faster and easier to work

with a file that only has the library items you need and not a lot of clutter.

• Photoshop:

Nondestructive editing is your friend. Use masking instead of erasing as often as you can. Make

Smart Objects to get editable Smart Filters.

When masking with the Brush tool, use your keyboard for speed.

• B for brush.

• D to set the colors to the default black and white.

• X to switch foreground to background and back (so white to black on the mask).

• Use the square brackets to change the brush size as you work.

• Illustrator:

Use basic keyboard shortcuts when using the Pen tool.

• A for white arrow.

• V for black arrow.

• P for pen (it will turn itself into the add/remove points tool when over points and paths).

• With the Pen selected, use Alt or Option to trigger the Convert tool.

Pay attention to the Appearance panel. You can layer additional strokes and files on objects and

control the color, opacity, and effects of objects from here as well.



Project Management

Lou RussellLou Russell, CEO of Russell Martin & Associates, is a dynamic, entertaining speaker and a topic expert and

author in the fields of training and performance, project management, and leadership. Lou’s humor and

positive outlook come through in every presentation she makes, and even the gnarliest topics will bring you

a giggle. Whether giving a keynote address for hundreds or facilitating a workshop for small groups, Lou’s

insights spark a memorable creative chord. She can turn any setting into an interesting learning experience

with immediate impact, and no one leaves her sessions without new ideas, concrete tools, and techniques to

apply immediately to their biggest challenges.

• Never ever skip the Project Charter! Be clear why the organization is doing this project before you

do anything else. Spend 45 minutes or less on the Project Charter (see

http://www.russellmartin.com/project-management-free-stuff). It will be a draft, and will change, so

trying to make it perfect is silly.

• Stop trying to predict the future. You can’t. Don’t try to control the future either, because control

breeds anger, which creates poor execution. As George Orwell advised, “He who controls the

present controls the past.”

• There are two types of projects: puzzles and mysteries. Puzzles are easily defined and have a right

answer. Throwing more people at it helps. Mysteries have never been done before, and no one

knows how to do them, so others’ opinions can mess you up. Mysteries require learning from failure

early and often. You’re likely working on a mystery, so applying puzzle techniques to it is frustrating

and ineffective. As Malcolm Gladwell writes, “Mysteries require judgments and the assessment of

uncertainty.”

• Stop spending time estimating how long a task will take another person to do. You estimate it will

take someone 10 days because it makes your project management software happy, not because it’s

true. Turns out, it takes the person two months to get time to work on your thing for 10 days. It’s

predicting the future by creating a quantifiable lie. Instead, tell people when you need something

done by and let them figure out how long it will take. Outsource time management to the person

who’s doing the work. Look for PM tools that don’t increase the complexity of your project. Great

article here: https://rclayton.silvrback.com/software-estimation-is-a-losing-game



Kevin SiegelKevin Siegel, the founder and president of IconLogic, has written more than 100 books, including Adobe

Captivate 8: The Essentials and Adobe Captivate 8: Beyond the Essentials. Kevin spent five years in the US

Coast Guard as an award-winning photojournalist and has more than two decades of experience as a print

publisher, technical writer, instructional designer, and eLearning developer. He is a certified technical trainer,

has been a classroom instructor for more than 20 years, and is a frequent speaker at trade shows and

conventions. Kevin holds multiple certifications from organizations such as Adobe and CompTIA.

• When creating projects for use on mobile devices, run the HTML5 Tracker (via the Project menu)

before publishing. Anything listed in the Tracker panel won’t function properly when accessed via a

mobile device. You should remove those items/effects from your project before publishing.

• Watch for plus signs on object styles! If you change the appearance of an object via the Properties

Inspector, the name of the style being used will display a plus sign. The plus sign indicates that the

change(s) you made to the object hasn’t been saved to the style. To fix the problem, click the menu

in the upper right corner of the Properties Inspector and choose “Save changes to Existing Style” or

“Create New Style.”

• It’s easy to create your own project theme. First, click “Themes” on the main toolbar and apply any

theme to your project. Next, go to the Object Style Manager (Edit menu) and modify the object

styles as needed. Then, go to the Master Slide and modify them as needed. When finished, choose

Themes > Save Theme. From that point forward, your custom theme will be available for use via the

project Themes.

• Not happy with the text that appears within your text captions when you record a software

simulation? Navigate to where Captivate is installed on your computer and open the RDL files with

Notepad or another text editing tool (there’s a different RDL file for each language you can use

when recording). Edit the text in the RDL file, and then save and exit. The next time you record a

software simulation, your edits will be used in the simulation’s text captions.

Adobe Captivate



eLearning 101

Tim SladeTim Slade is an authoring tools trainer for Artisan E-Learning. Tim has many years of experience working with

business leaders and stakeholders at all levels, in both the private and public sectors. Starting his eLearning

career at Kohl’s Department Stores, Tim worked in several business areas where he used eLearning, video, and

print media to enhance training and communications content for audiences of more than 140,000. Today, he

works to help others elevate their eLearning and communications content to the next level.

Does your head spin when you hear terms and acronyms such as “SCORM,” “prototype,” “responsive,” and

“gamification”? If so, you’re not alone. Many people are assigned the task of developing eLearning without

having the background on what eLearning really is.

Take our E-Learning 101 Terminology Trivia quiz and get up to speed on some of the most commonly used

eLearning (see http://www.artisanelearning.com/clients/Tim/ELearning101Quiz/story.html) terms.



Megan TorranceMegan Torrance is the CEO of TorranceLearning, an eLearning design and development firm with an

intentionally random client base. Megan brings more than a decade of business consulting and project

management experience to her instructional design and development work. The TorranceLearning team

combines creativity with pragmatism, fun with focus. Megan is devoted to not only delivering outstanding

work to clients, but also creating a top-notch work environment based on trust, flexibility, compassion, and fun.

• With agile, you’ll come to expect and accept change. Why? With most projects, the requirements

can’t be completely defined up front, and they’re likely to change along the way. Why?

• The project sponsor often doesn’t know every detail about everything he or she wants at the

beginning of the project.

• The project sponsor doesn’t have a crystal ball.

• You aren’t inside the project sponsor’s head.

• Every day you will learn something new about the project that will shape it.

• The organization doesn’t stand still waiting for you to develop training. It’s evolving and

growing, and business needs will change along the way.

• Stuff happens.

• And, if you don’t come up with a brilliant idea at some point in the project—one that could very

well change everything—it’s possible that you’re not as engaged fully as you could be.

• Training, consulting, software development, etc., all used to use an ADDIE-like model to approach

projects like this:

Agile Project Management and Using Humor in eLearning



The trouble with this model is that change happens all the time (and we come up with new ideas

and technologies all the time), so we need a model that allows us to learn and adapt to change on a

regular basis. Here’s what the LLAMA (lot like agile methods approach) model looks like:

There are several advantages to this more iterative approach, a few of which include:

• Easier project cost and timeline estimating

• Workable product is released early and often

• Constant learning and improving based on real-world feedback

• Faster identification of errors in assumptions

• The Agile Manifesto says:

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.

In a learning environment, we say:

We are uncovering better ways of creating learning experiences by doing it and helping others do it.

The Agile Manifesto goes on to say:

Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software [learning experiences] over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

It’s not that the things on the right aren’t important; they’re just less important than the things on

the left.



• Scope out humor in learning.

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Curiosity, Discovery, and Learning

ADAM SAVAGEHost, Discovery Channel’s MythBusters

Digital Badges and the Future of LearningCONNIE YOWELLDirector of Education, MacArthur Foundation

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