Create a moving spotlight of a specific part of a PowerPoint slide by setting a transparent color and applying a motion path.

This is the screencast that shows how to create the object with the transparent color to make the spotlight.

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My production process to create online education for emergency responders uses these tools:

• Basecamp from 37signals.com for project management
• PowerPoint for lesson storyboarding, narration writing, slide design, and slide animation
• Articulate Engage to develop custom flash interactions for lessons
• Audacity for recording a .wav of the audio narration
• Nikon D50 camera for custom photography
• Flip Video Ultra Camcorder for custom videography
• Gimp for image enhacement
• Articulate Presenter to convert the PowerPoint file to a SCORM compliant Flash movie that is played in the CentreLearn LMS

This combination of simple tools is used by subject matter experts (SMEs) to develop new lessons on topics of interest to emergency responders or to convert existing classroom content for online delivery.

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When I first started designing and producing continuing and refresher education programs for EMTs and Paramedics I jumped right in by applying knowledge I already had about adult education and PowerPoint design.

Along the way through a lot of trial and error I have steadily improved the instructional design process I use. This process includes understanding user needs, writing a lesson script based on objectives, creating visuals that minimize text, and replacing static content with dynamic and interactive learning objects whenever appropriate. I have also been guided by three excellent books: slide:ology, Presentation Zen, and Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro.

Almost all of my e-learning projects start as a PowerPoint slide deck that is converted to Flash using Articulate Presenter. Two design books that have helped me improve the quality of our PowerPoint slides are:
1. slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations
2. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

A third outstanding resource is the free ebook you receive after subscribing to the Articulate Rapid eLearning Blog by Tom Kuhlmann. His book and weekly blog posts are must reads for any elearning designer. His principles and tips are applicable to elearning in general and not just to Articulate.

Do you have any favorite PowerPoint and E-Learning Design books and resources?

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I create narrated flash movies that are the result of converting PowerPoint to flash with a program called Articulate Presenter. One of the most common questions I receive is “How many PowerPoint slides should I have in a 30 minute elearning program?”

They are rarely satisfied with my answer, “The number of slides doesn’t matter.”

“Well someone told me to never use more than 30 slides in a 30 minute presentation.” Or I was advised this:

“We can’t have this lesson be any more than 10 slides.”

The better question is “How many words should be in the audio script for a 30 minute elearning program?”

When converting PowerPoint to Flash, PowerPoint is the storyboard for designing the lesson. Each slide is like a frame in a movie. If the slide has animations it is like multiple frames in a movie. When I watch a movie every 3 to 10 seconds (sometimes even quicker) the on-screen visual changes. A newscast is filled with changing graphics. In this regard an elearning lesson is much more like a television show or movie than a classroom presentation.

30 minute lesson = ~4000 words

Typically I script elearning lessons by writing the narration in the notes view of the PowerPoint slide. The word count of the script determines the length of the lesson. 150 slides with 10 words of narration (the audio track) is a lesson that is 10 to 12 minutes long. 75 slides with a word count for the narration that is about 4100 words will be a lesson that is about 30 minutes long.

When creating a lesson I usually write one paragraph or one important point per slide. That leads to slides that will be on screen for 10 to 45 seconds. Each slide usually has one or more animations so something is happening on the screen at least every 30 seconds. Visual change with interesting audio content and opportunities to interact with the lesson helps keep students engaged throughout the lesson.

Explain your parameters for determining the length of an elearning lesson. Thanks.

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I leverage PowerPoint with Articulate Presenter to make elearning courses for EMTs, Paramedics, and Firefighters. This screencast demonstrates how I use PowerPoint and Articulate Presenter to Create Flash Animations.

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I use Articulate e-learning software to create quiz questions for online EMT and paramedic continuing education. The software makes the process easy.  The real difficulty is writing quiz questions that engage the learner and assess their new knowledge based on the lesson objectives. Determining the type and difficulty of quiz questions as well as actually writing usable questions is a challenge for many subject matter experts (SMEs). These are five of the tips I share with SMEs.

1. Determine the format for questions. I generally only use multiple choice questions. True/False or Yes/No questions are essentially guessing and provide little meaningful information about student retention or comprehension of the material presented. Unless I specifically tell SME’s I want multiple choice questions I usually receive 50% or more True/False questions.

2. Question construction. A multiple choice question has three parts – the stem, the answer, and multiple distracters. Write question stems based on the objectives of the lesson. Make sure to review the lesson objectives before writing questions. I usually have the source PowerPoint file on the screen in front of me as I begin writing questions – a great use for a dual monitor set-up. As I build a bank of questions I try to write three to ten questions per objective.

3. Present only the essential information in the question stem. Extraneous material does not likely add any educational value to the assessment. A multiple paragraph stem only assesses the student’s ability and determination to actually find the question you are asking. If there is a long scenario present it first and then ask the actual question.

Don’t teach in the stem. Explaining a process that was part of the lesson and then asking a question is unnecessarily redundant.

All of the following, except, none of the above, and all of the above are universally despised by students because it is confusing to determine what is actually being asked. As an educator you don’t know if the student got the question wrong because they didn’t know the material or they couldn’t determine what the question was actually asking. Help me rid the world of these question types.

4. Consistent formatting of the answer and distractors. I recommend these general guidelines for the one correct and three wrong answers:

• All answers should be approximately the same length. Since a visibly shorter or obviously longer answer is usually right make sure all answers have about the same number of words or one to three word answers or same number of characters for longer answers.
• Use plausible answers for the distractors. Obviously wrong answers increase the odds of guessing correctly.
• Any words or phrases repeated in every answer should be part of the stem. Keep the answers as short as possible.
• Write with a consistent verb tense for every answer. If only one answer is active tense it is likely the right answer.
• If the answers are numbers, order the numbers sequentially. For example, if a question is to calculate a medication dose order the answers 2, 5, 10, 15 instead of 5, 15, 2, 10.

5. Ask questions to determine comprehension. Student retention of lesson content is merely interesting. At least half of the questions should assess comprehension – the ability to apply information. Use short scenarios for students to apply what they have learned.

Finally, consider other ways to assess student use of e-learning content. If you are only using a quiz to prove they completed the lesson the only question you might need is “I completed this lesson” with the answers Yes or No.

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