If you haven’t read the first post in this new graphic design for eLearning series, be sure to catch up. Our Trivantis designers, Tony Cavalier and Anthony LaQuatra shared some great tips in Design Dos & Don’ts: Images and More. This next post focuses more on fonts and typography with some helpful tips for using text in your eLearning course.  Consider these graphic design dos and don’ts for eLearning: Do: Make the right font choices. "Match headline, subhead, and body font selections with each other," Trivantis designer Anthony LaQuatra says. Choose a few fonts to use per project, rather than going crazy with a new font on every page of your course. In a recent post on the Everything eLearning Blog, Stephanie Ivec asks this question: "What if you limited yourself to three fonts and four colors per project?" That’s a good way to ensure you make the right font choices. Read the whole article here: Define Your eLearning Style with Capsule Fonts. Do: Use the tools you have. Art Director Tony Cavalier suggests that Lectora® users take advantage of the eLearning Brothers assets built into the authoring tool and says they "can make designing easy." Tools like these are especially helpful if you need to save time but still want to create a cohesive design. For example, templates can provide a starting point for fonts and other design elements that will be used in your course to make it look professional. (Try out the eLearning Brothers templates in Lectora® Inspire for free.) Don’t: Use Comic Sans or Papyrus or the like. This tip is from Anthony (and I think most designers would agree). Fonts such as Comic Sans or Papyrus have a few problems—being overused and chosen for the wrong situations—and designers have strong opinions about them. Avoid using them in your eLearning course to keep it professional and effective. To learn more about fonts and typography, check out this article: The Essentials of Typography. Don’t: Let text dictate design. Tony explains, "Too much text can be a bad thing. Keep the text short and sweet to get the point across clearly and with more style." He also says that your focus should be to "drive engagement and keep the design simple and clean." The course design should give a positive first impression, so don’t overwhelm the learner with huge paragraphs of text. Get more tips for making a good first impression with your training in this article: The Halo Effect: First Impressions for e-Learning. Have some more dos and don’ts for using fonts and text? Share them in the comments below. And don’t forget to read the first post in this series: Design Dos & Don’ts: Images and More. The post Design Dos & Don’ts: Fonts and Text appeared first on .

We’re in the home stretch now. First, I brought you productivity secrets for general work, including email organization tips and the classic "work from home" tip. Next, I shared a slew of Lectora® development tips from our Trivantis® pros. And now? It’s time for the final stage of eLearning development—the review and revise stage. Create a Post-development Checklist "I keep this handy as I build courses so I remember to go back and check specific items, like consistency of buttons and hyperlinks, or making sure I remembered to use the proper Text Headings." -Laura Silver, Director of Product Management Jump from Section to Section "I like to use a course developer map page. I create a page that is in a chapter at the end of the course and put a Table of Contents object on it. I then make a hidden way to get to this page, such as right click on the course title which would set a variable, then based on the value in that variable a left click on the copyright notice will take you to the secret page. Once there you can get anywhere in the course via the table of contents object. This is very helpful when you are QA-ing your course after publishing it." -Joe Wieloch, Director of Development - Lectora Online Collaborate on the Review If you’re using Lectora® Inspire or Lectora® Publisher, "Publish to ReviewLink™—this will save you hours normally spent collecting reviewer feedback via email and spreadsheets." You can even use ReviewLink with courses created in Adobe® Captivate or Articulate® Storyline now! -Laura Silver, Director of Product Management If you’re using Lectora® Online, try this tip to speed up your review process: "I use Lectora Online’s export to Microsoft Word feature if I want to spell check my entire course, or check the grammar. This feature will also identify correct answers and can be used to produce an ‘answer key’ for subject matter experts to review." -Joe Wieloch, Director of Development - Lectora Online Well now you know all—or at least most—of the secrets to how we are so productive here at Trivantis! What are you going to do with all your free time after you implement these time-saving tricks? The post Productivity Secrets from the Trivantis Pros: Pt. 3 appeared first on .

Quite often, we get questions from our Lectora® users wondering how they can provide some kind of customized behavior based on a learner’s response to a question, such as showing a checkmark or an X next to each option of a drag and drop or matching question. And most often, the answer involves querying the contents of the question object’s associated variable. Every time you create a question object, an associated reserved variable is automatically created. You can see these on the Properties ribbon for the question and on the Reserved tab of the Variable Manager. But how can you tell what is inside of those variables at any given time? The easiest way to see the contents of a variable is to run the page containing the question in Debug Mode. You will find this on the View ribbon. When you run a page in Debug Mode, an external pop-up window appears that tells you what is happening behind the scenes. The Debug window will display every READ and every SAVE that happens with the variables on the current page, and also shows the current value of those variables within [brackets]. The initial value for all question types is null or empty, meaning the learner has not yet attempted to answer the question. But once the learner has interacted with the question, the value of its associated variable will change. The format of the value varies by question type. The table below explains the formats for the 12 different question types available in Lectora. Question Type Variable Value Example True or False The contents of the text field associated with the radio button that was clicked True Multiple Choice - text options only The contents of the text field associated with the radio button that was clicked Choice One Multiple Choice - image options only The name of the image as shown in the Title Explorer that is associated with the radio button that was clicked. By default, the images are named "Choice 1 image," "Choice 2 image," etc. But you can rename them. Choice 1 Image Multiple Choice - both text and image options The contents of the text field associated with the radio button that was clicked. With a mix of options, image only options will be substituted with a text string representing the option number. Choice Three Multiple Response - text options only The contents of all of the text fields associated with the check boxes that were checked, separated by commas Choice One,Choice Two,Choice Three,Choice Four Multiple Response - image options only The names of the images as shown in the Title Explorer that are associated with the check boxes that were checked. By default, the images are named "Choice 1 image," "Choice 2 image," etc. But you can rename them. Choice 1 image,Choice 2 image, Choice 3 image Multiple Response - both text and image options The contents of all of the text fields associated with the check boxes that were checked, or the names of the associated images as shown in the Title Explorer. By default, the images are named "Choice 1 image," "Choice 2 image," etc. But you can rename them. Choice 1,Choice two,Choice 3 image Fill in the Blank The current contents of the text entry field. This changes every time the user types a character. My answer Number Entry The current contents of the text entry field. This changes every time the user types a number. 1234 Matching The names of all of the Left and Right pairs that have been matched, separated by commas. The name for each pair component is up to you. You can rename these in the Question Creator. The default values would look something like this example. 1L-3R,2L-1R,3L-2R Rank and Sequence The contents of all of the text fields associated with each drop list for which a selection has been made, separated by commas. Choice One,Choice Two,Choice Three,Choice Four Drag and Drop All of the Item Names paired with the Drop Zone Names they have been matched with. The Item Names and Drop Zone Names can be changed by you. By default, they are simply numbered 1, 2, 3, etc. If an Item Name has not yet been paired with a Drop Zone, the drop zone part of the pair is represented as (na) in the variable. See example. 1-1,2-3,3-(na) Hot Spot The name or names of the hot spots that have been clicked, separated by commas .You can rename the hotspots. By default they are numbered 1, 2, 3, etc. A Hot Spot question can behave like a Multiple Choice question or a Multiple Response question if the "Correct Answer Includes More Than One Choice" option is checked. 1,2,3,4 Short Answer (Ungraded) The current contents of the text entry field. This changes every time the user types a character. My short answer Essay (Ungraded) The current contents of the text entry field.  This changes every time the user types a character. This is my essay. Likert (Ungraded) The contents of the text field associated with the radio button that was clicked Agree   Now that you know what to expect to find inside of the question variables and how to see the contents of them for yourself running under Debug Mode, you can set up actions with conditions that query the contents of a question’s variable to trigger some desired behavior. In the example below, the action is set up to show a check mark if Question_0002 contains 1L-1R for an option of a Matching question if the condition is true. If the condition is false, the action shows an X instead. You can find a downloadable example of this on the Trivantis® Community site here: http://community.trivantis.com/shared-content/visual-feedback-question-examples/ Lectora Basics is your intro to eLearning authoring with Lectora. In this blog series, Wendy Miller, Lead Content Developer here at Trivantis, will introduce you to fundamental concepts in Lectora. Wendy is a visual designer and computer programmer with extensive experience developing software, courseware, web sites, games, and multimedia. Other Lectora Basics articles: • Lectora Basics: What Is a Variable? • Lectora Basics: Using User-Defined Variables The post Lectora Basics: About Question Variables appeared first on .

It’s almost the end of October, which means two things: It’s almost Halloween! It’s time for the Best of eLearning in October! I know you’ve been waiting all month for our wrap-up of the best eLearning info out there. Or maybe you’ve been waiting all month for Halloween—I must confess I have. Either way, I have five great articles to share with you this month. Check them out and be sure to share your top articles in the comments. Trivantis Announces Responsive Course Design for Its Desktop Authoring Tool, Lectora I think this quote from John Blackmon, Chief Technology Officer at Trivantis, sums Responsive Course Design™ in Lectora® up nicely: "It’s a multi-device world we live in, and Trivantis is bringing you the tools you need to produce eLearning content for all of them. With Lectora, you can truly publish once and distribute everywhere." Design Dos & Don’ts: Fonts and Text Instructional designers are often expected to be graphic designers too, even if they don’t have any design experience. Christie Wroten interviewed our Trivantis designers for the Everything eLearning Blog and got some tips for eLearning developers. What’s in Your eLearning Style Guide? This guest post on the eLearning Brothers Blog fills my heart with joy. It’s all about consistent style and branding in your eLearning courses. Those little details really do make your course look more professional and can influence how your learners feel about your course. 7 Golden Rules Of Learning Connie Malamed, the eLearning Coach, created this list for a client "to teach SMEs a few basics about instruction and learning as they design their lessons." It’s a very handy resource to have when working with subject matter experts.  Everyday Workplace Learning: A quick primer Jane Hart shares some thoughts on everyday learning—the learning that takes place every day while individuals are carrying out their jobs. And in the spirit of Halloween, I have one last bonus treat for you… If you’re making a desktop eLearning course that can use Flash, this free ghost game from the eLearning Brothers is adorable! Get the game here: Freebie Friday: Ghost Chaser Flash Game. The post The Best of eLearning in October 2015 appeared first on .

We had a user tweet at Lectora recently, asking how he could become better at using variables. This is one of the biggest questions we get from new Lectora® users, so for this month’s Thursday’s Trending Topic, I’m pulling together a bunch of variable resources for you. You may have noticed that Wendy Miller, our Lead Content Developer, has been sharing an ongoing series of blog articles—and they’re all about variables! Lectora Basics: What Is a Variable? Lectora Basics: Using User-Defined Variables Lectora Basics: About Question Variables There will be more great posts coming up from Wendy—be sure to subscribe to the Everything eLearning Blog, so you don’t miss any. Here are a few more articles from the blog on variables. (These are a little older, so you may notice some interface differences between these screenshots and your current version of Lectora—you’re on the latest version, right???—but the concept of variables is the same.) Just for You! Using Variables in Lectora eLearning Software Create an Interactive e-Learning Game Using Actions and Variables in Lectora Lectora e-Learning Lesson: Keep Score in Your e-Learning Course Using Variables Wendy has also shared some examples in the Trivantis® Community of ways to use variables. These include downloadable Lectora files, so you can open them up and look at how she did things. Displaying Variable Values Examples - Simple Displaying Variable Values Examples - Complex Entry Field Validation Example If you’re not a member of the Trivantis Community yet… What are you waiting for? This is such a great resource to learn more about how to use Lectora and see what others are creating. The post Thursday’s Trending eLearning Topic: Variables appeared first on .

We’re pleased to announce that Lectora® Online 3 with Responsive Course Design™ (RCD) is now available. In addition to the benefits of collaborative, cloud-based authoring, you can now enjoy the timesaving features of RCD. Our unique RCD methodology allows you to design once, in the desktop layout. Content will be automatically sized and positioned on other views—phone portrait and landscape and tablet portrait and landscape. Each layout can then be tailored as necessary to accommodate the unique needs of that orientation and view, and changes in each look will be propagated using Lectora’s inheritance model. It’s a multi-device world we live in, and Trivantis® is proud to bring you the tools you need to produce eLearning content for all of them.  Beta testers have praised RCD and the benefits it provides those creating mobile training. "Trivantis once again has delivered a high caliber product that offers all the robust capabilities of Lectora desktop, now in a mobile centric format that is easy to use and makes responsive mobile for multiple devices much, much, easier for developers," said Jason Guest, IBM Learning Sales Manager. Read the Responsive Course Design whitepaper to learn more about how it works. In addition to the RCD option, Lectora Online 3 contains other great features, including: Automated Status Tracking: Status Indicator objects Use Status as an action condition Set Completion Status action New Menu Creator One-click Table-of-Contents based menu Live menu preview Enhanced Progress Bar Functionality Easily link a Custom progress bar to a variable Step a progress bar forward or backwards Publish to ReviewLink™ Already using Lectora Online? Sit back and relax. All these great new features will be waiting for you the next time you log in. Want to try before you buy? We offer free 30-day trials! Sign up and get started right away. You can upgrade your free trial to a full license at any time. Lectora Online starts at just $159/month. Lectora desktop user? Don’t worry—RCD is coming to desktop next. Stay tuned for more information. The post Announcing Lectora Online 3 with Responsive Course Design appeared first on .

Just like humans need a common language to communicate with each other, eLearning courses and learning management systems (LMS) need a common language so that courses can send information back to the LMS from students taking those courses. To accomplish this, the industry has come up with several eLearning standards that allow courses created by any vendor to "talk" with an LMS created by any other vendor. In this article we’re going to look at the history of those standards, and where we are today. AICC It all started with the Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC), which was formed in 1988. The aircraft industry has always had a high need for training and certification, and prior to 1988, this led to a variety of incompatible and closed system training programs that had unique hardware and software requirements. The major aircraft manufacturers of the time, Boeing, Airbus, and McDonnell Douglas, got together and formed the AICC to come up with a standard way for courses to communicate results to an LMS. The first standard for training media was published in 1989, and was based on a PC platform. In 1993, the AICC created the CMI specification—still in use today—which specified the communications between a course and an LMS. The specification was originally intended for CD-ROM or local file based content, and was updated in 1998 and 1999 to use a protocol known as HACP (HTTP-based AICC/CMI Protocol) to allow it to operate in a Web-based environment. The AICC was dissolved in 2014, and all of its efforts have been transferred to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) group. SCORM In 1997, the DOD established the ADL Initiative to standardize and modernize training. In 2001, the first production version of the new standard was released, and was known as the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) 1.1. Later that year, this was replaced by SCORM 1.2, which is perhaps the most prevalent eLearning standard used today. Much of the SCORM standard was taken from the groundwork laid by the AICC, and updated to use a JavaScript framework. This required the LMS to wrap the course in a frame and use a JavaScript API to communicate between the course and the LMS. SCORM has since evolved to a newer version, known as SCORM 2004, and its most recent release is known as SCORM 2004 4th Edition, which was released in 2009. SCORM 2004 added the concept of sequencing course objects, as well as the ability for the LMS to manage navigation of the content. Although SCORM was more modern than AICC, it was designed to work in a desktop/laptop environment, requiring a user to be online and logged in to an LMS in order to record information. In today’s mobile first, BYOD world, that is not always the case. SCORM is also very restricted in the information it can record from a course—its language only supports scores, completion/pass/fail, and answers to questions. In 2010, the ADL began research into a new eLearning standard that would allow much more flexibility, and it was given the codename Tin Can API. xAPI In April 2013 the specification for Tin Can API 1.0 was officially released, and the project name was changed to "Experience API" or xAPI. The name Tin Can API, or just Tin Can, is still a popularly used name for xAPI. xAPI is a simple, flexible standard that allows data to be collected on a wide range of information, rather than just strictly course information. It also allows for data to be sent in a completely platform agnostic way, so that xAPI statements can be sent from anything—from actions in a course running in a web browser to a physical button being pressed on a device. xAPI statements are phrased as an actor-verb object sentence, much like "I did this," and allow for great flexibility when composing a statement, so that just about any information can be transmitted. For all of the good things about xAPI, it really just defines a language for transmitting data, and how that data should be stored. An eLearning standard to replace SCORM will need to not only define this, but also specify what data needs to be transmitted in order for a course to be taken, scored, and completed. Along comes the next generation of eLearning standards, cmi5. cmi5 Before the AICC was dissolved, work had begun on creating a new eLearning standard meant to replace SCORM. The standard is known as cmi5, and is actually a "profile" of xAPI, meaning that it is a standard set of xAPI statements that a course must use to communicate to a cmi5 conformant LMS. The work on this standard has been passed to the ADL, and is actively being developed today. In addition to the standard set of statements that a course must send, cmi5 also allows for the LMS to capture all xAPI-based statements sent from the course to be stored and reported on, giving both the standard structure that SCORM has always provided, and the flexibility that xAPI provides. These are exciting times for eLearning standards today, as advances in xAPI and cmi5 will enable training managers to understand more and more about learner progress and continue to improve their training programs. For more information on how Lectora® eLearning authoring tool works with xAPI, read this article: Thursday’s Trending eLearning Topic: xAPI. The post eLearning Standards—What They Are and Why They Matter appeared first on .

In recent and ongoing arguments in the eLearning industry, the question "Are models like ADDIE still up to the challenges of modern day development?" keeps appearing. (ADDIE is an instructional design model that stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation.) While parts of ADDIE are helpful, the model on its own lacks efficiency and sustainability. ADDIE is expected to be completed in a waterfall method, which means each step is dependent on the previous one. This can prevent teams from being rapid and working on multiple elements of the course at once. With the sheer number of steps (primarily the expectation of repeated formal reviews), the process can get quite lengthy. Many argue that it no longer fits the need of corporate initiatives and project time frames. Instead, it’s a model based only on the ideals of perfect circumstance (quick and easy conversations, personnel being available for long periods of time and frequently, highly talented and willing individuals, etc.). Some may also argue that ADDIE is not repeatable (and therefore not sustainable) because you’re expected to take a fresh approach and never reuse content. Reusable content like worksheets and templates are not provided, so it’s up to the individual using the model to create material. It also assumes your desired intent is an eLearning course only instead of one that can be applied to eLearning, instructor led training (ILT or vILT), and blended approaches. The delivery methods are so vastly different that the expectation of being a universal application is a far reach. The following process is a hybrid model that I used to combine the best aspects of ADDIE, Rapid Development, Project Management, and SAM to achieve a repeatable (and therefore quicker) process. By also including the step of recycling content, the process also becomes sustainable. Kick Off A kick off is a series of conversations that ensure a project is defined. This is where you have the opportunity to share basic project information like why the course should be built, who will be playing the various roles, and establishing a timeline. Topics can be curated using a template or presentation, but conversation should flow freely and openly until everyone is comfortable with the basic information. This should not be a conversation where the instructional designer or course developer meet with the subject matter expert (SME) to "dump" knowledge or teach the subject. There are six people (at minimum) who should be involved in the whole process: an instructional designer, eLearning developer, graphic designer, SME, stakeholder and pilot participant. In some cases, the instructional designer, eLearning developer, and graphic designer may be combined into one or two people’s responsibilities. Analyze The first step is to analyze any existing information and issues and come to an educated conclusion on how to continue. Having a worksheet or presentation ready with these questions and additional considerations will help speed along the process. During this step, it’s important to ask yourself Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Specifically: Who is the audience? What is your objective and how will it be quantified? When will content be delivered and for how long? Where will training be conducted? Why was the training created? How does the training resolve an issue or help to achieve an initiative? Design The design phase is when you combine the information gathered from analysis and place it into a systematic and specific manner. This is where the instructional designer will apply instructional strategies, the graphic designer will create a visual design, and the eLearning developer will determine a technical design. The most common application of these strategies is for the instructional designer to create a storyboard or prototype with the help of the graphic designer and eLearning developer. A prototype is a roughly constructed course which includes placeholders for tentative content but still gives everyone an idea of how the course will look or behave. By developing in an authoring tool right away, you can save time and efforts when transferring content from one medium to another. If this isn’t a possibility, then having a storyboard template and design sheet helps to decrease the amount of time necessary to collect information. The stakeholder, SME, and pilot participant will act as advisors while completing the process. Revise During the process, it’s important to continuously revise content until it perfectly meets your objective (determined during the analysis phase). However, there are two key areas during the process where dedicated time should be set aside to take a step back from your project and reconsider anything discussed. The first is after the design and analysis phase. During this revision, you should focus on answering your key questions and reviewing content created during the design phase. Develop The development phase is when the eLearning developer will use the storyboard to create a course or expand on the prototype. Using a developer with knowledge of the tool will help to make sure content is created within a timely fashion. The graphic designer acts as a working partner providing additional material as needed. The instructional designer is available to provide advice or answer questions during the process regarding instructional strategies. The SME is also available to answer questions about the specific topic or process. Revise (Again) Once content has been constructed the whole team will meet to review the content together. At this time consideration should be taken for less than optimal viewing settings and situations like multiple browsers or devices. Feedback is then gathered and implemented.  It’s also important that at this time you enlarge your group of reviewers. After the initial group review it’s important to open the course to a new group, which could include team members of the pilot participant, people within the same department as the SME, and other stakeholders. The course should be placed into a testing environment to ensure there are no problems that arise during implementation. Once again feedback is gathered, discussed, and implemented. Implement The implementation phase is when the content officially becomes available to anyone within the curriculum focus or audience. The eLearning developer places the course where it will be accessible to all who need to view it, such as a learning management system (LMS). Knowing the requirements and being familiar with the LMS will help make sure upload is seamless. The course is monitored for a short time to ensure no problems arise. All relevant documents and copies of the course are placed into a location for safekeeping. Evaluate The evaluation phase is when the material is evaluated for its effectiveness on the overall objective that was determined during the analysis phase. This can be done in multiple ways but the most common is looking at key pieces of data. In the case of a sales course, this could be reviewing the previous quarter to see if numbers have increased or decreased. It’s important to determine these benchmarks during the analysis phase, so data can easily be extracted. You can also provide a self-evaluation to the learners in the form of a survey to see how impactful the course was. Recycle The recycle phase is when you’ll revisit the content after a certain amount of time or when a member of the project team feels the content is no longer relevant. Reusing content is a cheaper and easier alternative to creating new content. It’s also a sustainable process that ensures you consider the reuse of content instead of creating something from scratch each and every time a course needs to be developed. Do you use an adaptation of ADDIE for your eLearning process, or something different? Share your ideas in the comments below. Editor’s note: Jennifer Valley is Community Manager at Trivantis and an instructional designer with five years of experience in learning. She loves sharing and conversing on social media, blogging, and spending time with her family. You can read her blog here, as well as follow her on Facebook and Twitter. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Trivantis Corporation. The post Adapting ADDIE into a Quicker and Sustainable Process appeared first on .

If you’re just getting started with Lectora® or Lectora® Online, the most time-saving feature that you’ll want to use right away is a concept called inheritance. Inheritance allows you to place an object at the Title level, where it is inherited to all the Chapters, Sections, and Pages in your course. Take a look at the Title Explorer below. Notice that the Graphics group, Page Title, Logo, navigation buttons, and actions are all placed at the Title level. Rather than copying and pasting these objects onto every page where you want them to appear, you can place them at the Title level and know they will be inherited. This is useful for background images, course navigation, or other objects you want on every page of your title. You can see this in action when you apply a Design Theme to your title. All of the course GUI elements are placed at the Title Level. Chapters and Sections The same inheritance concept applies to Chapters and Sections. Suppose you want to place a Progress Bar, Table of Contents, or button on all of the pages of a specific Chapter or Section. Inheritance has you covered. Any object you add to the Chapter level will be inherited to the Sections and Pages within it. And any object you add to the Section level will be inherited to any Sub-sections and Pages within that Section. In the example below, you can see that the Progress Bar is placed at the Chapter level for Lesson 1, and so it will be inherited by the Sections and Pages within that Chapter. Quick Tip: Did you know that you can change the Progress Bar type to TOC and set the Scope to a specific chapter or section? Excluding Objects What happens if you have an object that you do NOT want to inherit on a specific Chapter, Section, or Page? For example, consider the Next button. You may want to exclude the Next button from appearing on certain pages in your title. You can still use inheritance, but remember to disinherit that object on the Chapter, Section, or Page where you do not want it to appear. To do this, select the Chapter, Section, or Page properties, and select the Inherit button. Choose to inherit ALL objects, NO Objects, or Specific objects from parents. Then select the objects you want Excluded and move them to the list. In the example below, the Next button and OnSwipeLeft action are excluded from this page. I didn’t need to delete or copy the object—I just excluded it from being inherited. Bonus Tip If you have a long list of objects at the Title, Chapter, or Section level, it can be hard to manage the Title Explorer. Within your Preferences, you can turn on the option to "Show buttons for hiding objects in the Title Explorer." When this option is selected, you’ll have the ability to expand and collapse the objects set at the Title level or for a specific Chapter or Section. Now that you understand inheritance, you’ll begin to save significant course development time. For more information about inheritance, view this Lectora Live video tutorial. To learn more about the Title Explorer, check out this recorded Inspiration Wednesday webinar. Want to try inheritance in Lectora? Sign up for a free 30-day trial. The post Why Inheritance Makes a Huge Time-saving Difference appeared first on .

The Trivantis® designers are back with more great tips for your eLearning course design. Today’s "Design Dos & Don’ts" post is full of helpful advice for getting inspired and making your course look professional. Keep these dos and don’ts in mind as you’re designing eLearning courses: Do: Find inspiration. Art Director Tony Cavalier says, "Nothing is new in design, so go look at other courses in our Community and get inspired. Also, get inspired by looking at some top design blogs like abduzeedo.com." (Plus, if you haven’t already, register in the Trivantis Community so that you can share your own inspiring work!) Do: Utilize white space. "Keep things from getting cramped and avoid confusion by using white space effectively," says Trivantis designer Anthony LaQuatra. White space is the negative space on your eLearning course that is intentionally left blank to make the important parts stand out. For an extreme example of what happens when you don’t use white space, take a look at the World’s Worst Website Ever. Don’t: Re-use designs. "Sure, things can be used again and again to keep a consistent design; however, a design should be specific to the application you are designing for," explains Tony. "Designing something for a company like IBM will look totally different than something for Snapchat. Use brand standards to achieve a design that is on brand." Don’t: Use clashing colors. Anthony suggests, "Use colors that have purpose and meaning for them. Example: reds give a sense of urgency and danger while an orange gives a less loud, more approachable call to action." To read more about using color theory for online training, check out this post by Everything eLearning Blog writer Stephanie Ivec: Color Me Intrigued: e-Learning and the Psychology of Color. Want more design dos and don’ts? Check out the other posts in this graphic design series: Design Dos & Don’ts: Images and More Design Dos & Don’ts: Fonts and Text The post Design Dos & Don’ts: Great Tips appeared first on .

The Best of eLearning post is a bit early this month. Next week we’ll be busy being thankful for family, turkey, eLearning, etc. November has been busy here at Trivantis® too—from the release of Responsive Course Design™ in Lectora® Online to choosing a 2016 Lectora User Conference location. But we haven’t been too busy to collect our favorite articles for you. Here’s the Best of eLearning in November: 1. 3 Meanings Of Compliance And Why They Matter New to eLearning, or need more details on compliance training, Section 508 Compliance, and SCORM-compliant eLearning? This article provides good explanations and resources. 2. Trivantis Announces Responsive Course Design in Lectora We released version 3 of Lectora Online this month. As John Blackmon, Chief Technology Officer at Trivantis said, "Lectora’s Responsive Course Design provides the solution that eLearning developers need for quick, effective mobile course development." (The eLearning Brothers even added over 30 new responsive templates to their Template Library.) 3. Great Time Talking #Gamification at Masie’s Learning 2015 Karl Kapp shares highlights from Elliott Massie’s Learning 2015 Conference. Keynote speakers included Steve Wozinak (Apple co-founder) on the history of technology and Salman Khan (Khan Acadamy) on data mastery and personalized instruction. 4. Top 10 Cloud-Based Learning Management Systems For Corporate Training Christopher Pappas shares top choices of cloud-based LMSs for corporate training on eLearning Industry. CourseMill® is in the top 5! 5. Why Inheritance Makes a Huge Time-saving Difference Laura Silver explains how you can save valuable time in your course development by using the inheritance concept in Lectora. Which one is your favorite? Share in the comments below. Happy Thanksgiving, eLearning friends! The post The Best of eLearning in November 2015 appeared first on .

My brother got all of the musical talent of our parents while I can barely carry a tune in a paper sack. He also got the beautiful, bouncy, curly hair while I got the lank, straight hair that won’t hold a curl longer than 5 minutes. Not fair! Wouldn’t it be nice if we could pick and choose the things we inherit, and do not inherit, from our ancestors? Not so easy to do with humans, but very easy to do with Lectora titles! Inheritance is one of the most powerful features of Lectora. It saves you development time, overall file size, and even improves runtime performance. If you are new to the concept of inheritance in Lectora, pop over to the Trivantis® Community Knowledge Base  where you will find a number of posts that explain howinheritance works. Then come back here and read the rest of this because what I really want to talk about is disinheritance. Inheritance is a wonderful thing, but it can also trip you up and cause frustration if you forget about it! When I started using Lectora, I was ridiculously giddy over the fact that I could add an object or action just once to any parent node (Title, Assignable Unit , Chapter, Section, Test, Test Section, or Survey) and it would automatically be included on all of the pages inside of that node!  Woohoo! But I would also get so focused on building the interactions on a single page that I would forget about the things that the page was already inheriting. And if something went wrong when I tested the page, I would sometimes get stuck trying to find the cause because I was only looking at the objects and actions directly added to that page. Aarrgghh! These days, when I help other Lectora users debug titles they’re having trouble with, often the solution to an issue is to disinherit, or exclude, something being inherited from a parent node. So if you cannot find the cause of unwanted behavior directly on the page, don’t forget to look up the chain of inheritance! Inspecting the items that a page or node is inheriting is easy to do by opening the Inheritance Settings panel from the page or node Properties ribbon. Just looking at the icon for the Inheritance Settings button already tells you a little something even before you open the panel. The icon will match the following inheritance options as follows:   Inherit ALL objects from parents Inherit NO objects from parents Inherit (or Exclude) SPECIFIC objects from parents   Once you open the panel, you will want to choose the third option to be able to exclude individual items. There are some differences in the way the panel looks between Lectora Desktop and Lectora® Online, but the functionality is the same. Inheritance Settings panel in Lectora Inheritance Settings panel in Lectora Online   The left side lists all of the objects and actions being inherited by the page or node from all parent nodes. Look through this list for anything that might be interfering with the functionality of your page or node. Two things that the list does not show are actions that are attached to objects, as well as actions and objects inside of groups. So, you may need to check for these in the Title Explorer if you are unsure of their existence. If you find that the culprit is inside of a group, you will need to ungroup that item to be able to exclude it independent of the group. And be careful not to exclude any item that is the target of an action on the page or pages you are testing. Inherited items aren’t always the cause of unexpected behavior, but it is they are certainly a common culprit. So, always remember the inheritance! For more inheritance reading, check out Laura Silver’s post: Why Inheritance Makes a Huge Time-saving Difference. To try out inheritance in Lectora, sign up for a free 30-day trial. Lectora Basics is your intro to eLearning authoring with Lectora. In this blog series, Wendy Miller, Lead Content Developer here at Trivantis, will introduce you to fundamental concepts in Lectora. Wendy is a visual designer and computer programmer with extensive experience developing software, courseware, web sites, games, and multimedia. Other Lectora Basics articles: • Lectora Basics: Question Variables • Lectora Basics: User Defined Variables • Lectora Basics: Variables    The post Lectora Basics: Why Disinheritance Could Save Your eLearning appeared first on .

On the Manage group of the Tools ribbon, you will find two very useful tools for managing aspects of your Lectora® titles, the Variable Manager and the Resource Manager. In this post, we will talk about the Variable Manager. We’ll cover the Resource Manager in a future post.  The Variable Manager      The Variable Manager allows you to view all of the Reserved variables associated with a Lectora title, as well as view, create, modify, and delete User-Defined variables. Variable Manager - User-Defined Tab When you open the Variable Manager, the User-Defined tab is active by default. On this tab, the left-hand pane lists all of the User-Defined variables that have already been created in the title, both used and unused. It is also where you would create any new variables by clicking the Add button at the bottom-left. Clicking the Add button enables the fields of the Variable Information panel on the right where you can choose a name for the new variable, set an initial or random value, and choose whether or not to retain the value of the variable between sessions. Selecting one of the variables in the list on the left enables editing of its properties as well as displays its usage throughout the title in the Variable Used pane on the right. Clicking on one of the items in the Variable Used list will automatically select the action with which the variable is used in the Title Explorer. If you are new to using User-Defined variables, you may find these resources helpful: Lectora Basics: Using User-Defined Variables The Trivantis® Community Knowledge Base resources on the topic of Variables     Variable Manager - Reserved Tab The Reserved tab is where you will find a list of all of the Environment variables that are automatically included in a Lectora title, such as CurrentDate, CurrentChapterName, ElapsedTime, Platform, and many others. All of these can be used with actions to display their values or to determine how your course should behave. The variables associated with certain types of objects that you create, such as question objects, form objects, and progress bars, will also appear in the Reserved list. Once you create one of these objects anywhere in your title, its variable will appear in the Reserved list. They will be named with the following format: ObjectType_#### For instance, when you create the first question object in a title, its associated variable will appear in the Reserved list as Question_0001. If your Title Type is set to AICC/SCORM/xAPI for LMS/LRS, the variables required to communicate data via those platforms are also included in the Reserved list. The names of these variables begin with either AICC or CMI. Unlike User-Defined variables, the names of these variables cannot be modified, and many of them are read-only. For a full list of Reserved variables, including read-only or modifiable status, see the Reserved Variables section of the Help documents within the application. Selecting one of the variables in the Reserved list displays its name, type, and description on the right. It also displays where the variable is used throughout the title in the Variable Used pane. Clicking on one of the items in the Variable Used list will automatically select the action with which the variable is used in the Title Explorer. Variable Manager - Unused Tab The Unused tab of the Variable Manager is very similar to the User-Defined tab. You can create new variables or edit variables on either tab. The difference is that the Unused tab only displays User-Defined variables that have not been used with an action anywhere in the title. And you can click the Delete All button beneath the list to remove these if you wish, although leaving unused variables in the title will not harm functionality in any way. Stay tuned for an upcoming post on the Resource Manager! To try using variables and the Variable Manager in Lectora, sign up for a free 30-day trial today. Lectora Basics is your intro to eLearning authoring with Lectora. In this blog series, Wendy Miller, Lead Content Developer here at Trivantis, will introduce you to fundamental concepts in Lectora. Wendy is a visual designer and computer programmer with extensive experience developing software, courseware, web sites, games, and multimedia. If you are new to using User-Defined variables, you may find these resources helpful: Lectora Basics: Why Disinheritance Could Save Your eLearning Lectora Basics: Question Variables Lectora Basics: User-Defined Variables Lectora Basics: What Is a Variable? The post Lectora Basics: How to Use the Variable Manager appeared first on .

It seems just a short time ago that we were extending our holiday wishes last year and here it is that time of year again. As the visions of sugar plum fairies slowly fade and the New Year looms just over the horizon it is time to turn thoughts to plans for 2012. Getting a head start on developing a budget is a great start to the New Year and planning to really jazz up your traditional training is an excellent investment. If you currently have an e-learning program, it is also a time to think about upgrading, updating and enhancing your current development to include the latest in technology and programming options. During the cold months of January and February we can meet to discuss your e-learning needs and help you to design a spectacular online training program. This is definitely the time of year to take a serious look at your current programs and develop exciting and unique ways to focus your training in the upcoming year. Incorporating a professionally designed and developed e-learning training program can also help you have more free time to get on with the multitude of tasks you have to complete while we handle the development process. As the training coordinator you may be racking your brain as to how to do things differently in the company this year. You are definitely tired of hearing employees complain about attending those mandatory trainings and professional development hour requirements. Moving from traditional training or online courses to fully interactive e-learning simulations or virtual worlds for meetings and information exchange needs to be high on the list of things to do. Not only will this satisfy your employee base but it is sure to delight your boss and highlight just how effective you are in your role with the company. New hires and existing employees will love to attend training online, preventing that age old problem of getting people to participate. We want you to give us a call and let us help you make your training program the next big thing in the company. It is always a collaborative effort and our professional e-learning developers, virtual world developers and gaming programmers can provide you with the training tools you have been looking for. This is definitely going to be to your advantage since you will have full confidence that we will provide e-learning experiences that cover all the objectives you have while also keeping those employees actively engaged and learning new information. In closing for this year, the staff at Designing Digitally, Inc. would like to extend a personal thank you to all of our existing and future clients. Thanks for allowing us to work with you in designing e-learning programs, virtual world tools and game-based trainings. Without you we wouldn't be able to provide the high quality work we are recognized for. Happy Holidays to all and we look forward to working with you in the upcoming year.   Midnight Hughes Co-Director of Morale Designing Digitally, Inc. 8401 Claude Thomas Road, Suite 23 Franklin, Ohio 45005 1-866-339-3231

Designing Digitally, Inc. would like to congratulate one of the most influential writers in our e-learning, serious games, and virtual world industry today. Karl Kapp has done it again with his new book titled The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education. This book is the ultimate guide to explaining how and why to gamify your learning for government agencies and corporate clients. In the book Kapp explains the fundamentals of how to create effective gamified learning. Organizations often think they are creating gamification with their learning by implementing basic content with a scoreboard or even a Jeopardy-like experience for the learners. While some would argue that using these tools is creating a gamified learning experience, you are also referring to what was being done by the e-learning industry five to ten years ago. This type of thinking is out of date and has a track record for failure. Kapp explains how gamification is truly a way of thinking and this could not be any more true. Gamification requires thinking outside the box, rather than pushing your content into an already existing game show or similar setting. The gamification theme is a popular trend in the e-learning industry today and is being adopted by large companies and government agencies. These organizations are using game-based learning to leverage the competitiveness of employees, provide experiential learning, and are even using it for recruiting purposes. Here at Designing Digitally, Inc. gamification is one of our core services that has provided a track record for positive return on investments. Andrew Hughes the President of Designing Digitally, Inc. made the statement, "Gamification is not something that can be done by everyone; it takes the ability to think outside the box and use both game developers and instructional designers together to create an experience not yet even imagined by the client. Years ago we would have a hard time convincing the CEO's and the VP's of companies to accept gamification, and now they are knocking on our doors asking us to convert conventional presentation content into educational, engaging, and entertaining learning that will grasp the attention of the new generations entering the workforce while also providing visual references for the older generations within the organization. Karl's book explains in detail the way to approach learning and lays the foundation for companies that have specialized in this for years such as Designing Digitally, Inc. I commend him for his work and hopefully this opens the eyes of some of the naysayers we've experienced in the past." A strong and important word of warning from Kapp is that not all content lends itself to be converted into a game. You must review and analyze both the content and the target audience to determine whether or not it will be the right approach. In our experience, we’ve found that when a company attempts to transform their content into a game and hasn’t found a positive ROI, they often don’t have an answer as to why they chose the route of gamification. In the book Kapp explains what does and does not work when considering gamifying your content. He has provided multiple case studies from many different organizations, agencies, and institutions including several of Designing Digitally, Inc.’s training simulation & serious game examples. Designing Digitally, Inc. again congratulates Kapp on an amazing book and suggests to everyone in our industry to pick up a copy from Amazon.com. The book is an excellent reference guide and explains why Designing Digitally, Inc. does what we do and why the industry is turning to gamification for enhanced learning.

Just last month we announced that an influential writer in our industry, Karl Kapp, had written and released a new book on gamification and learning and that Designing Digitally, Inc. was delighted to be featured in the book in several case study examples. It’s always rewarding to be recognized for our work in E-Learning development, but we started thinking about it and realized that some of our readers may still not fully understand the concept of gamification to begin with. Gamification sounds like a serious topic, but what exactly is it? Gamification, sometimes known as serious games or game-based training, is really not THAT new of a concept. Remember in elementary school when your teacher would get you and your classmates to split-up into two teams to compete to solve math problems on the chalkboard and the winning team would get a piece of candy? Or remember your school’s spelling bee and all the kids competing to win prizes for the correct spelling recitation of all sorts of esoteric words? That’s kind of what gamification is all about, but in today’s world there is far more technology involved for a much more engaging visual learning experience. As we’ve become a more technologically advanced society, our games have kept pace with the times. Board games like Monopoly and Scrabble are still very popular, but video games played with Playstation® systems on televisions or using handheld gaming systems like Nintendo® have become hugely popular for solo gaming. Online gaming systems allow players who never meet in real life to compete against each other or to compete on the same team against other players - sometimes players across the country or even in other countries. Some of these games have become immersive - 3D worlds where players can walk and run and explore buildings and subways or jungles and forests full of threats as well as potential friends to aid them on their adventures. It’s a thrilling time for the gaming industry and a challenging one for parents, who must make sure their children are not spending too much time playing games and not enough time getting physical exercise or completing their homework! As these students have matured and grown-up, it only makes sense to speak to them in the language they already understand when it comes to education and training after high school. This is where gamification enters the picture. With gamification, training for everything from emergency medicine and police defense to mass production and equipment and automobile operation can be accomplished in a fun manner that still inculcates educational value. Adding in contests and challenges to software-based learning using computers, often presented in an immersive 3D format, also serves to break-up the monotony that can accompany job-based training and even some collegiate education. Since statistics show that 70% of major employers already use interactive software and games for training, it’s really a "no-brainer" to use gamification for educational training purposes. Designing Digitally, Inc. specializes in E-Learning development, including gamification strategies for education and business purposes. We’d love to assist you in your next training development project, so feel free to request a free quote on our services and we can go from there.

"Gamification is serious business," according to the Wall Street Journal and their coverage of the Gamification Summit that happened in San Francisco this week - attracting well over 600 individuals from companies as diverse and even unexpected as Salesforce, Cisco and SAP. With the gamification market expected to expand astronomically to $2.8 billion by 2016, industry executives, the media and companies large and small are paying attention to this remarkable advance in the technology of training and education, and we at Designing Digitally, Inc. couldn’t be happier. San Francisco, the home of many gaming companies, was the natural hot spot for this burgeoning summit and we thought you’d be interested in hearing more about it on the Designing Digitally, Inc.’s blog. You see, we’ve been championing gamification as a logical expansion of our E-Learning development, 3D training simulations and virtual worlds development services for a years now. Gamification - the transformation of online training modules into robust, competitive, entertaining & immersive 3D learning programs that new employees actually enjoy engaging with - is becoming a focus for any company interested in consistent and effective training, particularly for younger new employees who have grown up playing hand-held and onscreen gaming systems. It’s simply a natural extension of the entertainment mediums they’re accustomed to, and a highly effective method of inculcating practices and processes they’ll need on-the-job, with far greater safety and cost savings involved for that initial training period. Gabe Zichermann, a gamification author and the conference chair of the three-day Gamification Summit, had this to say about the theory behind gamification and how it can influence employee education and training: "What we are trying to do is use the best technologies from games to create engagement and change behaviors. We’ve never operated a society that was free from structure, rewards, or penalty for bad behaviors. Now because of technology, organizations of all sizes are capable of putting that into their systems…Everybody plays games. Whether it’s a soccer mom comparing kids or guys comparing frequent flier miles, everybody’s keeping score. Keeping score is a core part of human nature. Why not bring these elements to all parts of life and make everything, even (unpleasant) jobs more fun?" We couldn’t agree more, which is why gamification plays heavily in the E-Learning and 3D training simulations we design, write and create for our many clients in radically diverse industries. You can learn more about the Gamification Summit and how big players like Major League Baseball, NBC Universal and Pepsi are jumping on the gamification bandwagon by checking out the Wall Street Journal event coverage here.

Look what we found. Anne Derryberry, a writer and consultant on serious games, education and interactive digital communications, has a pretty informative blog where she waxes philosophical as well as practical on all manner of issues related to serious gaming and education. She also assembled an impressive white paper on serious games for none other than Adobe - the powerhouse behind great graphic arts and design programs like Photoshop®, Illustrator®, Flash®, Dreamweaver®, Acrobat Reader® and more - basically the building blocks of many an Internet website much as they themselves are named after one of the great practical building blocks used around the world physically. Adobe clearly sees the value and promise behind serious gaming, and hired Derryberry to produce a clear and concise treatise on the subject for their readers. Ms. Derryberry has some grand and insightful things to say about serious games, games for training, and the gamification of learning that is happening in academic institutions and business organizations across the country and around the world. Her good journalism work is really making us excited about the business we’ve chosen to pursue, since the future clearly lies in technology-based education and training, and serious games are going to be a large part AND the fun part of that highly effective training future. In sections such as Do Serious Games Really Promote Learning, What is Different about Today’s Worker or Learner, and What Can We Expect in the Near Future, Derryberry lays-out her vision of the future for training-based education and gets into fascinating material covering LMSs (learning management systems) and even haptic computing. Some of Anne’s more interesting assessments and observations include: As organizations intensify their efforts to engage with members of today’s workforce, serious games offer a powerful, effective approach to learning and skills development. - page 1 While learning can and does occur within a casual game, it is a by-product, rather than an intentional outcome of game play. Serious games are designed with the intention of improving some specific aspect of learning, and players come to serious games with that expectation. - page 3 What sets serious games apart from the rest is the focus on specific and intentional learning outcomes to achieve serious, measurable, sustained changes in performance and behavior. Learning design represents a new, complex area of design for the game world. - page 4 As recently reported in BusinessWeek, "Companies around the world, including McKinsey & Company, Royal Philips Electronics, and Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, are bringing games with 3D computer graphics into the workplace[, and]…using games to recruit new talent, improve communication between managers and their far-flung staff, and train employees and new hires at all levels." - page 6 Younger learners are also being exposed to serious games with great success. England’s North West Learning Grid, for example, launched DiDA Delivered, a diploma program in IT skills for secondary students in the U.K. The curriculum includes 4,000 learning objects and 300 serious games. In the wake of the positive response to DiDA Delivered, the curriculum has more recently been launched in Australia, New Zealand, and Ascension Island. - page 8 Forward-thinking companies interested in attracting and retaining younger workers are already integrating serious games into training, performance support, and company community programs. They recognize what Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness, has observed: "Game players have to think strategically about their positioning and analyze opponent strengths and weaknesses…. These characteristics might not immediately come to mind when considering the learning needs of an employee of a fast food restaurant. McDonald’s believes otherwise. Today, much of the training of McDonald’s in-store personnel is conducted via serious games, including customer service, store operations, and employee supervision. - page 9 · Adds Don Thompson, assistant director, Education and Human Resources, National Science Foundation: "Perhaps the most fatal flaw in the education of young people is that we apprentice young people into 19th century science rather than letting them play 21st century scientist." - page 11 Serious games do not exist in a vacuum but are part of a course, curriculum, or larger learning experience. Learning designers must plan for easy and natural integration of a serious game into the overall learning design. Most especially, learning designs must include a plan for learning transference from the game back to the greater learning plan or to the workplace. - page 14 As you can see from the selections displayed here, Derryberry’s whitepaper for Adobe is chock-full of affirmative facts and insights on the future of gamification for learning. It’s exciting to hear others talk about one of our chief passions, and now you can read our white paper on the same subject - please click here to download your own copy. Also, you can contact Designing Digitally, Inc. for more information on serious games design and development. We look forward to working with your company on your future training initiatives.

Can you believe that the Holiday season is upon us? It has been a fantastic year at Designing Digitally, Inc. and that is a result of all the wonderful people we work with and for. The team and I would like to take a moment to say thank you to our clients and vendors! It is you who encourages us to push ourselves to our limits and provide excelled service to each and every client. So we thank you all for being there with us in 2012! And I would like to give an even bigger thank you to our employees, who have worked tirelessly to meet not only our deadlines, but also the high quality expectations our clients know and love. Without them this year would not have been successful. So thank you all for your time, dedication, and friendship, and may our good fortune carry us into the New Year. On behalf of everyone at Designing Digitally, Inc. we look forward to 2013, and until we speak again stay creative my friends! Thanks, Andrew Hughes President Designing Digitally, Inc. http://www.designingdigitally.com

A really interesting recent article on the BBC written by Nic Fleming addresses the history and evolution of the idea and pursuit of gamification for businesses. Mr. Fleming seems undecided as to how he feels about gamification - otherwise known as serious games or game-based learning - but he does an excellent job at spelling-out just what gamification is and how it could work in an ideal world, as well as several problems with the model presently. Gamification, which we at Designing Digitally, Inc. have been championing for some time now and believe in completely, is the art or science of taking education and training for disparate industries and placing them within a games-based milieu where the game player competes against him or herself, others online, or the game itself to earn points for various outcome results. These points are earned by achieving victories over tasks that are actually training routines within that particular industry, or for scoring on knowledge within that industry. Gamification is based on making learning and training fun and enjoyable, and leverages the growing number of young workers who have been raised playing complicated video games and are quite comfortable using computers and monitors for assimilating information. Some of the interesting and sometimes contradictory information included in the BBC article includes: US-based analysts Gartner predicted in 2011 that by 2014, 70% of the world’s Top 2000 companies will be using some form of gamification. Gartner then released another report stating that by 2014, 80% of gamification applications will fail to deliver "because of poor design." We’re not worried about THAT prediction - we’ve got great designers and coders onboard at Designing Digitally, Inc. Gamification theory can actually be traced back to 1937 and behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner’s system called "operant conditioning." Rajat Paharia, considered the founding father of gamification, adopted the term in 2009 after hearing it used in a presentation. Margaret Robertson, managing director of UK game design company Hide&Seek, prefers the term "pointsification" for much of what is considered gamification today, since important elements of true games - such as the risk of failure or repercussions for actions taken - are often missing in training-based games. There’s a big philosophical discussion happening right now about whether rewards-based learning/training encourages students to continue learning on the same subject or to lose interest. As writer Alfie Kohn explains it, "It reflects an ignorance of what psychologists have known for decades - that intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation are two completely different things, and that the former is undermined by the latter." There’s actually concern that gamification can become addictive for some users. With such a young industry just stretching its wings, there’s definitely going to be critics and nay-sayers along with fans and acolytes. That said, gamers will only continue to increase in percentage across America, and as the older workforce retires and newer, computer-savvy employees replace older workers, having systems in-place to take advantage of the efficiencies that serious games and E-Learning offers (mobile learning, consistent monitoring and scoring, standardized training administration, safety for new hires in training processes) only makes sense….Big Sense! Read the entire BBC article on gamification here. 

It’s the end of Q1 and so it seems like just the right time for a bit of a promotional push from our house to your house. That is, from our offices to your offices. We’re talking about E-Learning development and some companies’ attempts to do it themselves to save money on their training initiatives. While we certainly understand the desire and even the need to "pinch pennies" in our oh-so-slowly recovering economy, the old adage - "penny-wise and pound foolish" - comes to mind. Why so? Because one gets what they pay for and when you want professional work done right, you hire professionals to do it. And we’d like to do professional work for your business in the new year, so here goes our appeal to you. Trying to do write, design, code, host and support an E-Learning program such as serious games yourself will save you money up front, but it's certainly not going to give you the ROI you’re looking for once your employees start to use the games - therefore saving you no money at all in the end. We also can’t fail to mention the learning curve that will cost you a bunch of money as you seek to understand E-Learning development while several new generations of workers slip through your HR hands without game-based training. Does your team really know the gaming engines? Can your team truly build complex AI technologies to be incorporated into the game? Do you honestly think you have what it takes to realize and develop a full-blown serious game? You can run a mile, but you probably wouldn’t call yourself a marathon runner. In other words, leave the expert development to the experts. Designing Digitally, Inc. does this type of project work on a daily basis - it's what we're focused on and what we live to do. Since you already have a 40+ hour job, why try to take on another development that won't turn out like you want it. Indeed, do you want to produce a development that might actually embarrass you when everything is said and done - something that you’ll look back upon and say to yourself, "why did I waste my time trying to do this myself?" Everyone says they can do serious games, but really, Jeopardy-style games just don't count. We build addictive learning experiences that do more than just incorporate a game into the learning experience; we build a game based around the learning experience. Don't adapt; build from the ground up instead - that's the Designing Digitally, Inc. way! Ask yourself (or your HR team) if you really have the in-house team to develop both an innovative learning experience and a high-end gaming experience? And when you do decide to work with another company for a project, ask who works there, and what their qualifications are. If your developers say they can do it, and yet are not willing to pitch concept ideas to you ahead of time, run away as fast as you can before you feel obligated to pay for something you don’t really want and certainly did not envision. At Designing Digitally, Inc. we're so confident in our abilities, we will pitch concepts to you to determine what concept is best for your organization. In this way you can see our creativity and choose which game-based learning experience is going to be ideal for your culture. Of course those concepts are still our intellectual property, but we figure you’ll like what you hear well enough to decide to work with us. Contact us if you want your first time to be a successful implementation of serious games. You’ll most likely only get one chance to introduce this amazing method of training and education into your culture, and if it turns out poorly then your corporate culture will most likely reject similar efforts in the future, stating that they already tried it once and was not impressed. Who wants THAT kind of reaction on their work record, right?

It only makes sense that as more and more consumers throw away their landlines and go wireless, there will be more and more applications developed for the handheld society of the 21st century. Shopping apps, direction & guidance apps, image capturing & manipulating apps... there are so many applications being developed for the expanding world of cellular technology that it’s almost mind-boggling. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, the number of applications for the iPhone alone has reached 700,000 as of September 2012 - an astonishing number of possible utilizations! As a forward-thinking interactive development company, Designing Digitally, Inc. has been working on developing serious games, 3D training simulations, virtual worlds, and E-Learning programs for some time now - always with our ear to the ‘beat of the street’ when it comes to new trends and possibilities powered by the Internet and computer technology. Mobile learning solutions are our latest foray, since handheld devices offer so much freedom of movement and access and we are very much into the power of E-Learning for the new generation of workers, trainers, HR professionals and employees coming out of schools currently. As Andrew Hughes, President of Designing Digitally, Inc. puts it succinctly, "the benefit of mobile learning applications is that we can build fidelity and presentation experiences that you could normally only see on the computer, straight for your phone. This opportunity opens huge possibilities for time savings, training efficiencies, best practice consistencies, as well as overall convenience never before experienced in technology-based training. It’s quite fantastic." From providing workmen and maintenance people with near-instantaneous mobile applications on how to perform new repairs and conduct procedures to educating in-field sales people on new processes or products, custom mobile learning applications from Designing Digitally, Inc. can revolutionize the way new hires and seasoned pros learn on-the-job. With cellular phone use as well as tablet and laptop computer use growing exponentially each year, it’s just common sense to invest in this burgeoning technologic innovation to help keep your company or business on the cutting edge of training and education for a well-developed workforce. Designing Digitally, Inc. can help. Learn more about our mobile learning development service here. Then reach out and contact us to get started on your first mobile learning application for training and HR purposes. We’re waiting to hear from you.

Models of Mobile E-Learning for Training and Education With the advent of PCs, then the Internet, and then the near ubiquity of cellular phones in just a very few short years, it was not long until some bright person realized the cross- pollination potential of these disparate technologies. Thus mobile learning was born. With cellular technology powering hand-held access, users discovered they could do more than just talk on their phones and send text messages - they could access the Web and view websites, which soon were being designed to offer a variant design for cell phones and their smaller screens and more limited capabilities. In a feat that seemed oddly counter-intuitive, users were willing and even began to choose to access the Internet from a perspective of convenience rather than from sophistication and complexity. Much in the same way that vinyl records gave way to the more compact CD format despite surrendering visual artwork appeal, and in the same way that many if not most of today’s young people listen to music using the tiny speaker systems built into their laptops or via ear plugs instead of with large and loud, complex speaker systems, Internet users traded the larger visual displays and functionality of PCs for the convenient on-the-go access of the Web via their smart phones, etc. Like all good capitalistic ventures, once the need was identified then the marketplace adapted - soon smart phones and Androids, etc. began to feature applications that enabled their phones to do things only their computers could have done previously, and then some. Navigational apps, voice and image and sound recognition apps, even mobile-enabled websites that were specially designed to function on mobile phones began to be developed to accommodate this new market segment. The time was ripe for mobile learning in earnest. Today there are three main forms of mobile learning being practiced. The Web model of mobile learning requires "students" of all types to access blogs and websites via their hand-held device. Learning through the reading of website content, 3D simulations, the watching of videos…these are all examples of mobile learning using the Internet and websites as the main tools. In the App model of mobile learning, users download apps or applications - basically, software programs designed for mobile devices - that provide a very specific function such as a foreign language exercise, mathematics flashcards or a visual logic exercise for learning and development. The use of graphic QR codes to access apps for various exercises is another example of an evolving technology used to speed- up processes and procedures. The cellular model of mobile learning incorporates the use of the cell phone’s basic features for a learning exercise. "Telephony" functions such as listening to audio broadcast messages or engaging in text message-based testing procedures are examples of cellular mobile learning. With the proliferation of the Internet to all corners of the world and the relative lack of expense for cellular phones, expect mobile learning to continue to grow in popularity and use. Options for phone-based and tablet-based learning will continue to expand and be offered by more and more companies, with some businesses presenting all their educational resources via this milieu especially for younger, tech-enabled workers. Designing Digitally, Inc. offers E-Learning development and mobile learning development services for smart companies with their eyes upon the future. How can we help your business to become more agile and efficient in the 21 st century? Contact us and we’ll be glad to tell you more.

It’s always interesting to read what media pundits think of our industry from an outsider perspective, as their understanding about Serious Games, their purposes and value help us to develop more targeted communications about the TRUE purposes and value of Serious Games. We’re then able to help the wider world "get it" about the great educational and training possibilities inherent in fun and interactive gaming programs for people of all ages. A recent article from the BBC actually hits the nail on the head pretty well in terms of a big picture narrative about how Serious Games can be used and the diversity of subject matter they can address, citing such disparate topics as the ongoing Middle East conflict, the end of the Petroleum Age, and sexual coercion among teenagers. Talk about putting the SERIOUS in Serious Games, right? Addressing one of the biggest strong points of Serious Games - their ability to engage young people in contemplation and learning on subject matter in a way that holds their attention effectively and experientially - the BBC article cites a sex education program being tried in some schools in England. "’One of the things that's very striking when you spend time in a classroom of teenagers is just how easy it is for them to get bored or distracted,’ says Dr. Katherine Brown, leader of the Sash Research Group at Coventry University. ‘The more innovative you can be with what techniques you use, the more likely you are to be successful in delivering the education you are trying to get across. Having that technology does instantly engage the young people in the classroom. It's completely novel to them that their teacher would use this kind of technology to deliver a lesson on sex education.’" Considering the rather alarming rate at which American youth are diminishing as champions in academic achievement compared to youth in several other countries globally, the use of Serious Games may be an effective tool to get bored and disenfranchised teens and young adults back on-track interest-wise. We certainly hope that this is the case - that’s one of the reasons Designing Digitally, Inc. is here!