Articulate Projects Highlighted
“Good learning experiences don’t happen by accident. Neither does this portfolio — turns out the best way to learn instructional design is to keep designing things. So I did.”
Most of the projects here exist because I decided they should. No mandate, no team directive — just a Storyline license I bought for myself and kept because I wasn’t done with it yet. What started as coursework turned into a habit of finding problems worth solving and building something to solve them: a gamified certification assessment, a branching scenario for remote managers, a taxonomy tool for faculty who learn better through play than lecture.
That thread — curiosity, initiative, and a conviction that learning experiences should actually be engaging — runs through everything on this page. Some projects are polished and production-ready. Others are works in progress. All of them represent a deliberate choice to build rather than imagine.
The toolkit: Articulate Storyline 360 | Articulate Rise 360 | Camtasia | Suno | Midjourney | Adobe Creative Suite | Canvas LMS | SCORM | Generative AI
Note: Many of these activities were designed for learners who attended a workshop or completed other training where concepts were introduced before interacting with the experience. Choose the Explore It button to see the game mechanics, branching logic, and trigger interactions in action. To see build details and answers before interacting with the experience check out the Build Design page first.
Leading Remote Teams
A Blended Project in Articulate Rise & Storyline
A peek into a project under development. In a quest to develop a work sample in Articulate Rise, I thought — what better topic than remote leadership? I started working and leading my admin group remotely back in 2020. Although many concepts are not specific to remote work, some carry more weight in a remote environment. Follow my progress as I complete this build. Currently the modules are templated and Modules 1–4 are nearly complete.
Key Features: Shawna’s Brain | Claude’s Circuits | Rise | Storyline | Zoom | Premiere Pro | Vidnoz | Speechma
From Surveillance to Support: Maya’s Week
Storyline knowledge check embedded in Module 4
Maya is a remote manager navigating a pivotal week. This branching scenario, embedded directly into Module 4 of the Rise course, gives learners the chance to practice the module’s core concepts in a realistic context. Players make five decisions about check-ins, expectations setting, and outcomes vs. activity monitoring — each with immediate feedback showing the trust and efficiency impact of their choices. A personalized results screen at the end reflects their decision patterns, with the option to retry and explore alternative pathways.
Key Features: Branching Scenarios | Variable Tracking | Video integration | Personalized Feedback | Rise + Storyline integration
Developmental Diagnostics: Level 1 – Theories
A Project in Articulate Storyline
Shawna’s Brain | Claude’s Circuits | Storyline | Generative AI | Speechma
Created as a proposal example for a Subject Matter Expert looking for interactive elements to support course learning. This experience that transforms passive theory memorization into active skill-building. Counseling students assume the role of trainee observers, identifying developmental theories in 12 authentic early childhood scenarios. This immersive experience provides immediate, theory-specific feedback and tracks performance across six major developmental frameworks. Built in Articulate Storyline 360 with custom AI-generated illustrations to create a cohesive, story-driven learning environment.
Key Features: Scenario-based learning | Conditional feedback | Performance tracking | Gamified assessment
12 Days of Learning: Bloom’s Barnyard
Shawna’s Brain | Claude’s Circuits | Articulate Storyline | Suno | Generative AI | Midjourney
A Gamified Learning Experience in Articulate Storyline
Built as a free holiday gift for the Sententia Gamification community on LinkedIn, this seasonal learning experience uses the familiar “12 Days of Christmas” framework to introduce Bloom’s six cognitive levels — with a twist. Assigned Day 6, the story centers on six geese, each representing a cognitive level. Enter the antagonist: the swan from Day 7, who swoops through their forest clearing and scrambles everything in delightful chaos.
Learners meet each goose and complete a mini-quest tied to that cognitive level — measurable verbs, objective-to-assessment alignment, and cognitive ladder progression. The experience opens with an original song written by Suno covering all six levels, setting the stage before the mischief begins.
Level 1 (Remember): Select measurable verbs from ornaments to hang on a Christmas tree — correct choices earn a golden egg displayed at the bottom of the screen. Each subsequent level steps up the cognitive ladder through increasingly complex challenges. Wrong answers? No penalty — learners simply retry until they collect all six golden eggs.
Key Features: Game based design | Cognitive alignment | Branching logic | AI-generated audio & art | Seasonal engagement strategy
Vendor Software Transition: AssetWorks User Training
A Blended Training Solution using Camtasia, Canvas & Articulate Storyline
AssetWorks Software | Camtasia | Articulate Storyline | Canvas LMS | SCORM
A major software upgrade for the university’s surplus property disposal system meant getting existing users up to speed on changes quickly and consistently. New users would still need extensive training on the Property Disposal Process and the Software, followed by a Knowledge Check before issuing access to the software.
The solution was a two-part approach: a Camtasia screencast for the existing user update overview, and a screen cast series for the new user training, followed by a formal assessment to confirm readiness before granting software access.
The Surplus Property Adventure
Storyline gamified assessment – SCORM tracked in Canvas LMS
The knowledge check that earned learners their certification. This gamified Storyline assessment uses building color-change triggers to show learners which areas they’ve covered and what remains — giving spatial context to their progress through the material. Completed through Canvas as a SCORM object, scores and completions were tracked to gate access to both Property Manager Certification credit and the AssetWorks software itself.
Key Features: Gamified assessment | SCORM deployment | Completion tracking | Certification gating | Trigger-based interaction
The Taxonomy Gym
Bloom’s Taxonomy Skill Builders in Articulate Storyline
Articulate Storyline | Generative AI | Job Aid Integration | Canvas LMS | SCORM
Sometimes the best learning experiences are the ones that don’t feel like learning. These two short, low-stakes Storyline activities were designed to help faculty and learners build fluency with Bloom’s Taxonomy through play — reinforcing measurable verb recognition and cognitive level identification in ways that stick and encourage tool/job aid use.
The Measurable Maze
Verb recognition activity – job aid integrated
Navigate a tile maze by identifying measurable verbs from Bloom’s Taxonomy — with a downloadable job aid to reference as you go. Correct selections turn green and add points; incorrect ones turn red and subtract. Reach 14 points to escape. Deceptively simple, surprisingly tricky.
Key Features: Job aid integration | Tile-based interaction | Score tracking | Replayable design | SCORM deployment to Canvas | Trigger-based interactions
Cognitive Conundrum
Drag-and-drop sorting activity – cognitive level alignment
Twelve books, six library carts, one taxonomy to master. Learners drag book titles to the cart representing the correct cognitive level — a drag-and-drop challenge that builds classification fluency at Levels while reinforcing why cognitive level matters for curriculum and assessment design.
Key Features: Job aid integration | Tile-based interaction | Score tracking | Replayable design | SCORM deployment to Canvas | Trigger-based interactions
Meet the Team
Interactive Staff Introduction
Articulate Storyline | Canvas LMS | SCORM
When software users interact with a team they’ve never met, a little familiarity goes a long way. This interactive scene uses photos that changed from black and white to color when selected, hotspots, and triggered reveals to introduce each team member in a way that’s more engaging than a staff directory. Started with an existing Articulate Storyline template, updates, and deployed as a SCORM object in Canvas — and now easy to update whenever the team changes.
Key Features: Hot spot interactions | Photoshop editing | Photo reveals (states) | Trigger-based design | SCORM deployment | Canvas LMS Integration