Technology Proficiency: Storyline

For my second technology proficiency sample, I have selected Storyline. Storyline is a key tool used across the industry of instructional design and dominates as one of the most mentioned software tools in job descriptions for instructional design. I first went through the LinkedIn Learning course on the “essentials” of Storyline’s most recent version. The mini-proposal I sought to explore for Storyline was too ambitious for the scope of the current assignment. Several weeks ago, I witnessed a presentation from a representative of Bread for the World on the racial wealth gap in America. I already had an idea to create a Storyline-based learning module on these themes, so I decided to convert the simulation in the presentation (which showed how white and Black Americans came to have such a wide wealth gap) into a Storyline format.

I explored two different approaches to piecing together a Storyline artifact for my particular topic. In the first image below, you can see I explored using a blank canvas and created my own look. I wasn’t satisfied with the results starting from scratch, in part because I’m using the free trial version and I didn’t have access to the whole range of characters in Storyline. In place of these, I tried finding characters to use elsewhere, but these were not great fits and I didn’t have multiple versions of these characters to use throughout the presentation. Nevertheless, through this, I learned out to import images and manipulate them on the screen, how to use text boxes, the timeline, and triggers. So I then imported the original PowerPoint presentation, even though it suffers from some standard PowerPoint weaknesses (e.g., far too much text, mediocre graphic design) and I edited the first several slides. I took text only slides, did some copy-editing, and placed the text in a speech bubble that I pointed at one of the few free characters. I got to use the timeline at the bottom and edited both in the “story” view and the slide view. Overall, I got a sense of the various features and how to navigate the software. What I didn’t get to do was to create a simulation with multiple branches and I didn’t do any voiceover, but I think I have a handle on how these would be applied. I chose not to try to publish and embed the module somehow on the website as that would have taken several more hours. In the future, I will try using the Articulate Community’s elearning challenges with Storyline to get a better sense of its features.