Test Your Geography Knowledge

How does your knowledge of geography measure up against 8th graders from the 1910s? In this week’s eLearning challenge, David Anderson came across a list of questions from an exam written in 1912. It was Kentucky’s Bullitt County exam for 8th graders covering a wide variety of subjects including arithmetic, geography, grammar, physiology, civil government and history. David asked us to create an updated version of the exam for online learners. I loved the idea, and created mine based on a few of the geography questions.

Take the Geography Quiz

Make Them Laugh
I like to customize my feedback, so you don’t just get the generic “correct” and “incorrect” responses. Since geography can be a bit of a bland topic if not taught properly, I threw in some humor, sound effects and simple illustrations into the feedback layers.

Storyline Assets
For my background picture and illustrations, I dug into Storyline’s built-in and royalty-free images. I usually search in Storyline first for images. Since I’ve already paid for the software, it only makes sense to look there first before going to outside providers. Being the quiz was originally written for 8th graders, I remembered there was a little boy’s voice (named Justin) in Storyline’s text-to-speech voices. Justin’s voice is also one of the less robotic-sounding options. I also thought the sarcastic attitude of some of the feedback would sound particularly funny delivered from this little boy’s voice.

So check it out and let me know what you think. Your feedback is always appreciated and can stimulate some interesting and informative conversations.

Voices in my Head

When Queen released “A Night at the Opera” the album that exposed the world to the classic rock anthem “Bohemian Rhapsody” the liner notes emphatically stated that “no synthesizers were used on this album.” So, I’m going to tell you the same thing about my voice-over portfolio, with the exception of the tympani roll, all the music was created with one simple tool, my voice.

Click to view my voice portfolio

E-Learning with Character(s)
Over the last few years, I have created or helped out with quite a few e-learning projects which have required me to tap into the voices in my head. I really don’t have the pipes for doing the narration part, but I have come up with quite a wide range of character voices in creating interactions & games for David Anderson’s e-learning design challenges.

E-Learning Feud Characters

In this portfolio, you’ll meet a couple game show hosts, a nerd, a jock, an old man, a goofball of a guy, some assorted animals, and …BERT.

The Gist
Rather than just clicking on the examples and jumping right into the interactions, I thought I better explain a little what each interaction was about, what my role was in their creation, and a little bit about my thought processes. Jackie Van Nice gave me the idea of creating a separate bit of theme music, sort of a slower more “contemplative” version of the theme song at the beginning to go behind my voice as I give the run down on these various interactions.

Bert gets all Dracula in yo face

I designed this portfolio so you can just click right into the interactions if you want. You don’t have to sit and listen to the “director’s/actor’s comments” first. The bottom line is, just jump into it and enjoy.

Click to view my voice-over portfolio