AI is changing the way digital content is created: our experience
Recently, we had the chance to try the Articulate AI assistant for Rise, to discover the possibilities of this feature.
We were curious to understand how an Instructional Designer can use AI for in the flow of course design, storyboarding and creation.
Usually, when receiving documents and materials from our Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), we deal with pages and slides full of text.
The documentation analysis process is therefore quite a time-consuming phase.According to our personal experience, yes, AI can be a great facilitator, but still the Instructional Designer’s mind and experience are the greatest tools to be used.
How does the AI Assistant for Articulate Rise work?
Document analysis and creation of a summary
The first step of the Instructional Designer’s work is to carefully read the materials provided by the SME to identify the main learning objectives which will be covered in the course.
The next step is to create a summary and sequence of the learning objectives that will be the structure of the course. This structure must fit the training needs that our clients want the course to address.The Instructional Designer needs to check the AI generated sections, to make sure that they are consistent as training units, if the structure is complete from a learning perspective and if the sequence is appropriate to create a learning journey.
The core of the content: the storyboard creation
Now the Instructional Designer needs to create a storyboard, which will be the core of the content, and the guideline for the entire online course.
It is now needed to go deep into details and work on each section.
When editing the sections of the course, here the magic begins: the Instructional Designer can create cards, texts, images, processes, knowledge checks and much more. For each of them the AI assistant will generate a suggestion, based on the imported documents.
If we would like to talk about the cons, we need to be honest and say we were a bit disappointed about a feature that was not released yet: generating videos with AI. We hope that this will be provided soon, as it might be interesting and useful to create engaging content, such as the video of a person speaking and explaining concepts, instead of long texts being displayed on screen.
Only the Instructional Designer has the experience to establish what best suits the learning objectives, according to the customer’s needs.
What is the correct medium for that specific concept?
To convey the message, is it better to use a plain text, or a process content type?
Do we need to insert an image?
Do we need to insert an intermediate knowledge check?
Certainly, the AI can only suggest, but only the Instructional Designer knows what’s better in the right context.
Details make the difference
In the process of the storyboard creation, it is important to choose the right words. Writing clear and user-friendly texts is definitely something not simple, especially when it comes to very technical content.
When it’s about editing the texts, the AI can help the Instructional Designer in:
- making the paragraphs shorter or longer,
- changing the tone of the communication (formal/informal; technical/conversational),
- changing the focus
Only the Instructional Designer knows when it’s the case to have shorter or longer texts, and where to focus, based on the importance of the topic.
Furthermore, AI can only suggest a tone of voice, but only the Instructional Designer can identify the correct one and adjust the lexicon accordingly.
Quiz creation
To help the learning process it is very important to provide in-progress and final exercises, quizzes and knowledge checks.
In the design of the course, it is an important part of the job of the Instructional Designer to create meaningful quizzes that help the reflection on the learning objectives.
The AI assistant for Articulate Rise can help in suggesting and generating quiz questions, which can be customized for many different needs.
Only the Instructional Designer knows if the AI generated quiz corresponds to the customer’s needs and to the objectives of the course.
The quiz can be manually customized in different ways: you can check and change the focus of the question, you can change from multiple choice to single choice, etc.
So, how can we resume our current experience with AI?
As a result, we can say that the AI Assistant for Articulate Rise can be a good facilitator, especially when it comes to analyzing long text materials to be used in storyboard creation.
But, in the end, it’s always the Instructional Designer that critically analyzes the suggestions made by AI, to guarantee the best learning results.
So, AI is not replacing the experience of the Instructional Designer. Instead, it’s the AI supporting the Instructional Designer, to create good quality content and save some time.
We look forward to many more exciting things to come!