An interactive slider idea popped out of my head and I just had to visualize it. Storyline 2 was an obvious choice in terms of a slider. A starting image was a great free photo via unsplash.com. You can download a set of 45 free stock images of desks, tables and computers from here.    I wanted to show how Articulate's website changed over the years and the wayback machine (internet archive) was a great source for this.  So basically I wanted to take some screenshots and show them changing when

I always appreciate the impact of full-slide size images and short messages - these two combined together are so powerful and grab the attention of the audience.   Challenge 93 (grabbing attention and motivating learners) was a great opportunity to use the approach mentioned above.  If you want your presentation/e-learning course be memorable (especially if your content is numbers heavy) it's good to keep the rule "one message at a time". Avoid cluttered slides, overwhelmed with text or/and

There's a new trend in web design which is video background - it surely makes the site more interesting and engaging. And creating video background interaction was the latest e-learning challenge.   As I didn't have any inital idea, I decided to search through resources for royalty free video with an open mind and see what's going to grab my attention.   When I saw this 10 seconds video my only thought was "..how many days are left until Christmas?" and I continued browsing for another

While working on challenge #92 which was about creating navigation instructions in e-learning courses, I've noticed how much visually I absorb from things around me and implement them into my e-learning examples. Inspiration is everywhere!   I saw this great poster one day and the next week, when the navigation instructions challenge was announced, I knew it's going to be my design inspiration for the challenge.   Have a look at the image below: home button is a small house icon at the top of

NPR recently featured a story in which our Minecraft camps were mentioned. We teach 21st century skills without the pain!

A common question we get asked is, "What makes an effective online course?" There is no secret ingredient, but we’ve pulled together a few tips. No single determining factor determines if a course is good or bad. However, with our experience in online education, we’ve noticed a few things that some of the most successful courses have in common. Today, we have accumulated a few of those tips to create a universal recipe that you can rely on. Here’s the recipe for how you can design an effective online course: Preheat it with a Hook Before you launch into the meat of the course, you want to capture the students’ attention. Students learn best when they are intrigued by the material they are learning, and there’s no better way to bore them than with a mind-numbing list of facts and figures.Students learn best when they are intrigued by the material they are learningClick To Tweet Break the ice with an engaging introduction, whether it is a game, relevant clip from popular TV show, or personal story. The key is to make the course interesting while keeping students interested in the course. Mix it up with Videos Research has shown that visual content helps us remember new information better. This is primarily due to the fact that the human brain is wired to process images better than words. Visual imagery is powerful, and although the effects can be achieved with pictures and infographics, you can take it to the next step with videos. visual content helps us remember new information betterClick To Tweet Take the time to record yourself on video (an audio recording works as well), integrating the video with well-illustrated photos or slides that get the information across quickly. Limit the number of words you use and focus on employing pictures and graphs. If you do this step successfully, watch out because your students will be learning in no time. Bake it with Storytelling Storytelling is an art. It is the simplest way of engaging students, while expanding knowledge at the same time. By building off the potential of imagination, we can transform big ideas into precise facts.Don’t underestimate the educational power of storytelling.Click To Tweet We tell stories to our friends and family every single day, and the same skills apply here: be interactive, be dramatic, and personalize the story to make it your own. Don’t underestimate the educational power of storytelling. Cool it with Quizzes If you want students to remember specific information, don’t force it down their throats. Information is only half of the learning curve; the other half is testing. Although tests and quizzes have a negative connotation, they actually are more effective than you think. Tests inform you of the things you know and don’t know, so you can focus your energy on what needs improvement. Use testing in online courses strategically to focus student energy on what needs improvementClick To Tweet What many instructors choose to do is put a quiz at the beginning and end of every course. That way, the student will understand what to focus on from the very beginning, and won’t waste effort on what they already have knowledge of. Ice it In the radio industry, there is something known as dead air, or radio silence, and it is one of the worst things that could happen. Although this phenomenon often happens unintentionally, dead air occurs just as easily with awkward pauses and excessive um-ing and ah-ing. Students lose patience quickly with empty content, so the best solution to keep them engaged is by ensuring your online course is professional and put together.Avoid radio silence in your online courses to maximize student attentionClick To Tweet Edit out irrelevant material (especially when you go on a tangent), omit any unnecessary pauses, and re-record parts that have mistakes. As a result, you can maintain the natural flow of your content and won’t lose students’ attention. What other course ingredients are you using that are making your courses compelling? Share in the comments! The post 5 Techniques to Create an Effective Online Course appeared first on Thinkific.

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To all the bloggers out there wondering how to transition into online courses, your prayers have finally been answered! Today we’re going to teach you how to build an online course from your blog. Blogging comes easy to you, but an online course may be completely new territory. Maybe you’re unsure of what you want to teach, maybe you’re confused as to what e-learning platform to get started with, or maybe you don’t even know if an online course is right for you. Whatever stage you’re at now, we can help turn your uncertainty into confidence. Here are five tips on how to turn your blog into your online course: Choose a good topic. One of the differences between a blog and an online course is that a course is very specific and outlines the nitty gritty details of a subject. Although a blog can be more general in topic, a course cannot. Its role is to provide a learning opportunity, which means that your blog ideas need to be narrowed down into one teachable subject. We recommend using your audience as a focus group and surveying them to see what they’re interested in learning. Your students will most likely be your existing readers, and so you want to make sure to get their approval first. Chart your course curriculum. Like a blog, an online course needs direction. It needs a beginning and an end, and you need to make sure the path to get there is as painless as possible for the student. Take your time going through your former posts to see what content is transferable to your online course. However, don’t get stuck trying to maximize the recycling of your blog material. One of the biggest blunders you can make is trying to brand a course like your blog, rather than branding it as the most marketable course it can be.An online course needs a beginning and end, and the path to get there should be painless.Click To Tweet Create (visual) content In a blog, you can get away with having plain text on a basic background. However, there are so many multimedia options in an online course builder that a text-based course would feel lifeless and mundane. So, before you import your blog as a fifty-slide text lesson, take advantage of Thinkfic’s content builder. Turn your blog content into a presentation, infographic, or video lesson. Add a quiz to test students on how much they’ve learned, or play with discussion forums to hear students’ opinions. There is so much you can do with online course builders that you shouldn’t be limited to plain text. Deepen, don’t duplicate, content This piece of advice is almost a reiteration of Tip #1, but it is so important that I wanted to make it a tip of its own. The goal of your course should be to take a deep dive into topics touched on at a higher level on your blog, not to simply offer another way to deliver the exact same content. If your course is a duplicate of your blog, you will be losing students faster than you can say "online course." Your blog and course should not be mirror replicas of each other. Rather, make your course a more in-depth experience. Start with a popular post or series from your blog as the framework, then provide a deeper understanding of the material by making the user experience engaging. Your blog should support your online course, and vice versa. Blog about it What better way to market your course than to blog about it? By being an established blogger, you’re one step ahead of many other instructors: you possess a loyal group of followers itching to check out new content. Leverage your established audience, give your readers weekly updates on your progress, and thicken the anticipation by doing pre-sales and offering promotions to your course. That way, when you finally launch, your fans will be ready for it.What better way to market your course than to blog about it?Click To Tweet Itching to get started? We’ve got you covered! Create your online course on Thinkific today, for FREE! You can work on setting up your course, without worrying about dollars. There is no risk in trying, so give it a go and see where it takes you. Win win! What do you bloggers have to say? Have you tried creating online courses before? What worked and what was difficult for you? Share in the comments!   The post How to Turn Your Blog Into an Online Course appeared first on Thinkific.

Intelligence has been a hot topic for scientists for centuries, and in the last 30 years we have learned that there may just be more to being smart then merely testing well. Dr. Howard Gardner, a neuroscience professor at Harvard University, first coined the theory of Multiple Intelligences in 1983. His theory defies the wide-believed notion that intelligence can be measured with short-answer standardized tests. Instead, he believed that there could be multiple kinds of intelligence, eight kinds in fact, and everyone had their own distinctive combination of these intelligences. The best way for you to learn may just depend on what kind of smart you are.Click To Tweet Many instructors are looking for ways to make their course content more engaging, and one unique way to do that is to think about these different learning styles. Some believe that accommodating various learning styles will  generate better outcomes (like student engagement!). Today, we will discuss the eight types of intelligences and how you can design a course best suited to help your students succeed. Accommodating various learning styles could generate better learning outcomes.Click To Tweet Spatial These learners like to conceptualize. They are aware of their environments and think in terms of space. They learn best using models, charts, photographs, and videos. Example: Teach the different planets in the solar system by having students manipulate a scaled 3D model online. Bodily-kinesthetic These learners are aware of their body. They are keen on touch, movement, and sensory awareness. They learn best by physically doing, learning hands-on, and role-playing. Example: Teach choreography by having the students practice the steps at home. Musical These learners are sensitive to sounds in their environment, such as rhythm, pitch, or tone. They learn best by using musical instruments, transforming lessons into lyrics, or listening to music while studying. Example: Teach the stages of cell division by asking the student to compose a song about it. Linguistic These learners are sensitive to the semantics, sound, and metre of words. They like to use language to explain complicated meanings. They learn best by reading, writing, storytelling, and abstract reasoning. Example: Teach what caused a specific brand to grow by having students debate on the topic using Thinkific’s integrated Disqus forum. Logical-mathematical These learners have the capacity to recognize patterns among actions or symbols, and use inductive reasoning to conceptualize thought processes. They learn best by formulas, equations, operations, and thought maps. Example: Teach students aspects of international trade by having them create a Venn diagram comparing the imports and exports between the US and Canada. Interpersonal These learners are able to collaborate in a group and communicate ideas with other people. They are often sensitive to the changes in mood, temperaments, and the feelings of other people. They learn best by doing group projects. Example: Teach creativity by inviting students to a Google Hangout and having them peer review each other’s personal work. Intrapersonal These learners are able to work individually and are sensitivity to their own feelings, emotions, and consciousness. They learn best by doing independent study projects. Example: Teach photography by having students keep a journal and reflect on a photo they take everyday. Naturalistic These learners appreciate the natural world and view various phenomena with a sense of wonder. They are able to identify and classify species, plants, flora, fauna, and physical history. They learn best by experiencing things firsthand, making observations, and exposing the senses to nature. Example: Teach math tessellations by showing students natural plant patterning. Build online courses that are best suited to help your students succeed.Click To Tweet How many different learning styles does your course currently support? Thinking about the information you are trying to teach in a different way can lead to a more diverse and engaging learning experience? We’d love to hear if you’re doing anything unique with course delivery - leave a comment below! The post How to Build Content for Different Learning Styles appeared first on Thinkific.

There’s one thing bookworms love about the long, lazy days of summer vacation, it’s summer reading time! Yes, summer for bookworms means beach reads, rainy day novels, reading by flashlight in a tent, and muggy days spent in the quiet cool of a library. It means three glorious months to catch up on all the great classics, new fiction, and bodice-ripping paperbacks you missed out during the year. So we decided to combine our love of books with summer’s favorite treat - ice cream. We’ve come up with a list of 8 literary ice cream flavors we wish were real. Any ice cream-makers out there want to take us up on these fiction-inspired flavor challenges? War & Peach - Summer’s favorite stone fruit mixes with sweet cream ice cream to cool you off faster than a Russian winter. A taste as aristocratic as it is historically and philosophically significant. Clockwork Orange Sherbert - A deliciously dystopian twist on the retro flavor of orange sherbert. A shocking "ultra-violent" orange hue finds redemption in a milky flavor. Best served while enjoying a rousing rendition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. One Flew Over the Cocoa Nest - You’ll go mad for this flavor, or fake madness at least. A hell-raising, rebellious sugar rush that will inspire you to overthrow the most tyrannical of authority figures. It’s so chocolate-y, it’s against the nurse’s orders. Monkey Crunch Gang - Fight the power with this bananas and peanut butter flavored ice-cream, filled with four kinds of environmentally-friendly nuts and crunchy granola bits. You could live off this flavor for days while camping in the American Southwest and sabotaging construction sites. The Man from Lemon-cha - The ultimate Quixotic flavor - it’s sour yet sweet, creamy yet icy, light yet luxurious. The taste of Spanish lemons will cause you to thirst for adventure, long for the golden age of chivalry, and act slightly insane. Brave New Swirled - Caramel swirl is the Alpha flavor in this highly-controlled dystopian concoction, but there’s a fudge ripple of discontent that that questions the social hierarchy and a little inferiority-complex nuttiness. The more ice cream you eat, the more you refuse to accept your station in life and act out individualistic tendencies. Catcher in the Pie - Vanilla ice cream and apple pie bits - that is the taste of teen rebellion and angst. Slivers of apple pie will have you longing for the simple purity of youth and make you daydream about saving children from losing their innocence. Bland vanilla makes you worry that you’ll become acclimated to the tedium of adult life. Finnegans Cake - The most challenging ice cream flavor you will ever encounter, but consistently named the best in the world. Few attempted it and even fewer have finished it. It’s experimental ice cream base is filled with completely nonsensical chunks of cake. You don’t know where the ice cream starts and the cake begins. Covered in sprinkles for added confusion.