Tag Archives: learning agents

Beth and the Mermaid

Posted on by Judy Unrein
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A quick look at some new images that have come onto the elearning scene recently*:

"The perfect elearning host" according CS. I concur.

Cheers: Cartoon Solutions has released Beth, a smart-looking, non-Barbie™-proportioned character that’s great for learning agents. I have to admit, though I’ve used their art in the past, sometimes I’ve changed the body proportions to be more realistic. The marketing behind Beth shows that Cartoon Solutions is paying attention to its elearning audience.

She's not bad... she's just drawn that way.

Jeers: Trivantis included a — sorry to say — salaciously drawn mermaid in the Lectora X media library. Can’t say I’ll find much use for this in elearning… even if I needed a mermaid, I wouldn’t opt for Jessica Rabbit’s long-lost oceanic kin. And that’s a pity because elearning is Trivantis’s whole business. That being the case, it’s pretty disappointing to find something this off-the-mark. Hat tip: Marc Shecter.

*Wordpress tells me I started this blog post almost three months ago. I haven’t posted it because I’ve had an issue with Lectora X’s media library on my company’s network… not Trivantis’s fault from what I can tell, but it’s taken some time to get resolved, and I wanted to be able to say that in all fairness, the rest of the media library is at least work-appropriate. It is, and otherwise I’m pretty darn keen on Lectora X’s improvements. :)

…And Finally, Learning Agents Part 6: Get Your Own (Using Illustrations)

Posted on by Judy Unrein
1

Illustrations deserve their own discussion; they’re my recommendation because they’re highly editable.

Angela, one of our recent stars. $18 for her files and 100% worth it.

Angela, one of our recent stars. $18 for her files and 100% worth it.

You can use clipart (and if you do, check out Tom Kuhlman’s now-classic post on clipart editing). For learning agents, though, one or two on-screen personas get a lot of focus and need to represent a wide range of behaviors, so clipart may not cut it.

For my money/time, I buy pre-made illustrations. The regular stock photo sites have illustrations, but the best collection I’ve found for learning agents is cartoonsolutions.com.

Most of their characters are elearning-appropriate and they come with various poses and mouths (meant to animate speech, but I also use them as facial expressions). I buy Flash versions and use Illustrator to edit them for stills. Add audio from a popular CSR, and you’re golden.

I’m still looking for more collections — any recommendations?

Learning Agents Part 5: Get Your Own (Using Photos)

Posted on by Judy Unrein
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For small shops, part of the difficulty of creating learning agents is developing media. I prefer using still images (photos and illustrations — more on those tomorrow) rather than animations and video.

Stock image from iStockphoto. Or Fotolia.

Stock image from iStockphoto. Or Fotolia.

Some IDs take their own pictures for greater authenticity, sometimes using coworkers. Some avoid this because of the possibility that it will distract learners (and the possibility that someone will leave — or change appearance — and create rework).

If you prefer stock, here are a few sites where you can get suitable images:

1) istockphoto.com, bigstockphoto.com, and fotolia.com have decent collections, often searchable by model so that you can judge whether all poses you need are available. Lots of their images can be found on any of these sites.

2) narratorfiles.com has larger collections of images, more focused on training purposes.

Do you use stock images or take your own? Why? Favorite sources?

Stay tuned: Get Your Own (Using Illustrations)

For small shops, part of the difficulty of creating learning agents is developing media. I prefer using still images (photos and illustrations — more on those tomorrow) rather than animations and video.

Some IDs take their own pictures for greater authenticity, sometimes using coworkers. Some avoid this because of the possibility that it will distract learners (and the possibility that someone will leave — or change appearance — and create rework).

If you prefer stock, here are a few sites where you can get suitable images:

1) istockphoto.com, bigstockphoto.com, and fotolia.com have decent collections, often searchable by model so that you can judge whether all poses you need are available. Lots of their images can be found on any of these sites.

2) narratorfiles.com has larger collections of images, more focused on training purposes.

Do you use stock images or take your own? Why? Favorite sources?