Where I’m Speaking in 2021

Where I’m speaking in the first part of this year. I’m scheduled to present on branching scenarios, Twine, and getting stories from SMEs.

I will be giving presentations on several topics in the next few months. Here’s the information on where I’m speaking in the first part of this year. This includes everything currently scheduled; more events may be added later.

Where I'm Speaking in 2021

Streamlining Branching Scenario Planning and Design

  • Wednesday, January 20 at 1PM EST/12 PM CST
  • For North Dakota ATD
  • $15 for non ND-ATD chapter members (free for members)
  • Register on the ND-ATD site

You can watch a recording of an earlier version of this presentation.

Session Description

Branching scenarios can be a great solution for giving people an opportunity to practice making relevant decisions. While they can be a valuable experience for learners, building branching scenarios can be time-consuming and challenging.

By the end of this session, you’ll have a streamlined process for planning, designing, writing, and prototyping branching scenarios that you can then build in any authoring tool you want. This streamlined process will help you save time and make the complexity of branching scenarios more manageable.

In this session, you’ll learn:

  • What questions and tactics elicit relevant stories and examples from SMEs
  • How to use Twine for planning, writing, and prototyping branching scenarios
  • Why giving learners opportunities to fix mistakes can streamline branching design
  • How to use different branching structures for scenarios
  • What to write first in a branching scenario

Scenario-Based Learning Q&A with Devlin Peck

This will be an informal discussion about using scenarios for learning. If you join, you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions for us to discuss live.

Scenario-Based Learning Q&A with Christy Tucker, Hosted by Devlin Peck

Gathering SME Stories to Craft Relevant and Engaging Scenarios

  • Thursday, February 18 at 2:30 PM EST/11:30 AM PST
  • Part of the Learning Guild’s Deepening Your ID Skills Online Conference
  • Register on the Learning Guild’s website. A single online conference is $395 ($295 for members). However, the annual Online Conference Subscription is only $495 for six online events per year, so it’s much cheaper to pay for the annual subscription if you think you’ll attend even one other event.

Session Description

Gathering stories from SMEs is a never-ending challenge. SMEs are busy, and they generally don’t understand training and learning the way you do as an instructional designer. You need to negotiate and navigate their needs and wants to that of your learners. Ultimately, you need relevant examples and stories from SMEs to make your eLearning more realistic, relevant, and engaging.

This session will focus on a common sticking point in creating scenario-based learning. In it, you’ll learn how to ask focused questions and techniques to probe SMEs for additional details such as mistakes and consequences. You’ll learn ways for getting “unstuck” while working with SMEs, and why it’s better to interview SMEs rather than have them write scenarios themselves. You’ll leave this session with tactics to help you get the concrete examples and stories you need from SMEs.

Managing the Complexity of Branching Scenarios

Branching scenarios can provide learners with opportunities to practice making decisions in relevant contexts. However, they can also be time-consuming and complex to plan, build, and evaluate. In this session, we’ll talk about ways to manage the complexity of branching scenarios. We’ll examine every stage of development, reviewing ways to streamline the process of analysis, writing, building, and reviewing. You’ll leave this discussion with practical ideas for making branching scenarios easier to create.

Build Branching Scenario Prototypes Fast with Twine

Session Description

Most development tools are built primarily for creating linear content. It’s often possible to create nonlinear or branching content, but that isn’t the primary purpose of the tool. That means building branching scenarios can be clunky, cumbersome, and time consuming. SME and stakeholder reviews of branching scenarios are also challenging, especially if they don’t have a prototype to help them envision the final product. But what if you had a tool that was designed just for creating branching scenarios—and for building them quickly?

In this hands-on session, you’ll build a functional branching scenario prototype in under an hour with Twine. Twine is a free, open-source tool for creating nonlinear stories. We’ll work together step-by-step to create a prototype of a simple branching scenario.

You’ll create a new story and add new linked passages for several decision points. I’ll provide you with text for your first branching scenario so you can focus on the tool during the session, rather than typing and create a scenario. Once you build your prototype, you’ll test it by playing through the different choices. You’ll publish your functional prototype as an HTML file that reviewers can click through, as well as publishing a proofing format for SME and stakeholder reviews. I’ll also show examples of different story formats and how you can use CSS to create a more polished look and feel. You’ll leave this session with a functional prototype of a simple branching scenario and the hands-on experience to prepare you to use Twine in your own design and development process.

What you’ll learn

  • Why Twine is an effective tool for creating branching scenario prototypes quickly
  • How to create a story in Twine
  • Add and link to new passages
  • Publish a branching scenario in Twine
  • Use story and proofing formats to change the look and feel of your prototype
Build Branching Scenario Prototypes Fast with Twine

Scenario-Based Learning

  • Wednesday, May 20, 2021 at 12 PM ET
  • ATD-Greater Philadelphia Area
  • Registration: Free for members, $20 for guests

Are you looking for ways to make your training more relevant and engaging? Have you ever thought that adding scenarios might improve your courses, but you weren’t sure where to start? Do you want to use scenarios, but you’re not sure how with limited time and resources? 

This presentation introduces the why and how of scenario-based learning to help you get started.

Originally published 1/12/2021. Updated 4/23/2021 with new events and updated information.

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