Using Articulate Storyline for Project B
I recently tried using Articulate Storyline 360 to create an online instructional lesson on test-taking strategies to be used at Lone Star College (LSC) in the First Year Experience (EDUC 1300) course. I chose this particular subject because my counterpart at LSC-University Park, Kathryn Bernhardt teaches this course fully online and she volunteered to be my client. We noticed that her test-taking instruction was a static document that did not capture students’ attention nor truly measure their time on task. I offered to use this opportunity to create a more interactive and measurable lesson for her students.
I had a choice to use Storyline or Rise as the requirement for Project B in my master’s course. I have briefly used Storyline before so I decided to delve further into it rather than learn another new tool. Overall, I found Storyline to be rather user-friendly. The workspace interface is similar to Microsoft PowerPoint so it felt familiar to me. I was able to create Master slides and apply a variety of layouts to my lesson. It was easy to link slide groupings called scenes from one to another to dictate the flow of the lesson. I loved the library of characters I could add to my slides to give the lesson a more human touch.
I did run into some difficulties using Storyline. Some of my troubles were due to ignorance. There is always a learning curve involved when trying a new tool. Knowing a tool well always helps me decide how to approach the design of an online learning object or lesson. In this case, I assumed I could place more than one essay quiz question input on a slide. There were several quiz question slides where I placed two or more text entry fields on the same slide. What I discovered was that the results slide could not collect the input from multiple essay questions on one slide. It would only collect one essay question per slide. I had wanted the learner to be able to compose their reflection responses on one slide and then be able to print them out to keep and review. Unfortunately, the results slide would only print out one designated text entry field from each slide. By the time I discovered this, it was too close to my project deadline to change it. That is a risk when using a new tool on such a tight project timeline.
Another factor of a tight timeline is the speed required for content development. I was fortunate that I found a test-taking strategies chapter in the College Success v 1.0 course offered through a Creative Commons license from Saylor Academy. They graciously shared their lesson under a CC license that allowed me to freely re-mix and adapt their content to our needs. I stayed close to their course organization only shuffling the descriptions of types of tests to a different section. I was worried about the wordiness of their lesson content and wished I had more time to break it up in a creative way.
The amount and length of text to read in this lesson turned out to be the most common criticism of my beta test group. I was lucky to get three out of six faculty who teach this subject (including my client, Kathryn) to review the test-taking lesson. Overall, they were thrilled that the lesson was updated in a more interactive and measurable format. They liked the interface, felt the lesson content was informative, and met the course goals. However, they too were worried that the length some of the text blocks would intimidate students. They suggested more chunking of information and adding supportive images.
I feel I have a good start to producing a quality test-taking strategies lesson. There are many changes I’d like to implement. While Storyline was easy to use and integrated within our D2L learning management system, I think it would be more applicable to shorter lessons that did not involve as much text. I felt this lesson needed more vertical space to allow students to see a complete list. I will most likely use the HTML templates in D2L to present the text and break it into chunks that are more manageable. I also want to move the essay and other quiz questions into D2L for the sole purpose of exposing students to the exact quiz tool they will be using in all their online courses. Finally, I’d like to introduce more story elements and scenarios to the content to increase the engagement and help the students relate the content to their own lives. Overall, I’m pleased with the test-taking strategies lesson I produced for Project B and am looking forward to taking it to the next level.
Tags: LTEC 5210