The Department of Justice’s final rule updating Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), published April 24, 2024, requires all state and local governments to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards for web content and mobile applications. This includes all agencies and departments of state and local governments, special purpose districts, Amtrak, and commuter authorities. If you manage learning and development for any of these entities, every piece of digital training

Here's the original article I wrote for Evolve Solutions Group: https://evolve-sg.com/5-science-backed-ways-to-go-beyond-narrated-powerpoint-elearning/ Narrated PowerPoint-style eLearning still makes up the majority of online training, but it’s not doing learners any favors. Linear slides with stock images, bullet points, and voiceover rarely activate areas of the brain responsible for deep, lasting learning. Research from cognitive science, neuroscience, educational psycholo

Here's another article I wrote for Evolve Solutions Group. Original publish: https://evolve-sg.com/smarter-humans-safer-systems-the-real-fix-for-ai-misinformation/ In Spring of 2025, a reputable media outlet unknowingly published a summer reading list that included book titles fabricated by an AI . Not long before, NewsGuard uncovered over 1,200 websites pushing AI-generated news articles with no human editorial oversight. And in an even more sobering development, researcher

Here's an article I wrote for Evolve Solutions Group: In the age of constant digital change, yesterday’s leadership playbook no longer applies. With constant technological breakthroughs, the half-life of skills is shrinking. Research from the World Economic Forum shows that 44% of core workplace skills will change by 2027 . At the same time, leaders must navigate increasing complexity—rising automation, economic uncertainty, policy changes, hybrid work models, and shifting em

Check out this article I wrote for the Evolve Solutions Group newsletter and blog, original publish here: https://evolve-sg.com/navigating-ai-emerging-tech/ Generative AI has gone from a novelty to an essential tool in today’s L&D world. In just a few years, it has transformed how content is created, knowledge is shared, and training is delivered. The rapid pace of change isn’t slowing down—and this is just the beginning. As emerging technologies continue to evolve, the real

I did some research into multiple L&D trend reports in January 2025 and used AI to glean some perspectives. Here's what I found. Original publish: https://evolve-sg.com/a-brief-summary-of-five-ld-trend-reports-a-look-at-leadership-technology-and-workforce-needs/ Ahead of the new year our inboxes are filled with insights from the previous year as well as upcoming trends. I found these 5 top industry sources the most impactful, so I fed them to ChatGPT and asked it to summarize

Here's an article I wrote for Evolve Solutions Group. Original publish: https://evolve-sg.com/investing-in-the-future-training-and-mentorship-for-gen-z-success/ Training programs aren’t just about addressing current skills gaps—they’re about showing your employees that you’re invested in their growth and success. As Gen Z steps into the workforce, they bring fresh perspectives, digital fluency, and a desire for purpose in their work (for more about where Gen Z stands check ou

Check out my article from the Evolve Solutions Group June 2024 newsletter for 5 tips to keep you up to speed on emerging tech for training design and dev: The allure of emerging technology is hard to resist, especially in the dynamic world of L&D. With promises of increased efficiency, enhanced learning experiences, and improved outcomes, it's tempting to dive headfirst into the latest trends. While flashy games and simulations might be effective for some content solutions, t

Here's an article I wrote for Evolve Solutions Group. Original publish: https://evolve-sg.com/streamlining-simulation-design-with-rapid-prototyping/ Creating a training simulation prototype is a great starting point for design efforts and getting early feedback, allowing for quick, cost-effective idea exploration and early problem identification. It encourages collaborative feedback integration from the start, with opportunities to update and align the final product with user

Credit to u/3DPianiat and u/perturbaitor on reddit for the basis and inspiration for the prompt, based on their modified prompt for a Choose Your Own Adventure game (go visit the reddit link above to check out the prompt options from the original thread to play CYOA with Chat-GPT!) created with stable diffusion 2.1 at Leonardo AI - https://app.leonardo.ai/ For the prompt, copy and paste everything between the lines below into Chat-GPT, then follow the conversation; it should

I wrote this article for the November 2023 Evolve Insights newsletter: https://evolve-sg.com/what-elearning-can-borrow-from-game-design-part-2/ Harnessing the Power of Story, Dialogue, Empathy, and Consequence in Training & Development In Part 1 of “What eLearning Can Borrow From Game Design” I discussed ways you can elevate your eLearning courses with Game Design and UX techniques. In this article I’ll explore how storytelling, dialogue, roleplay, and consequence are fundam

I wrote this article for the October Evolve Insights newsletter: https://evolve-sg.com/custom-ai-chatbots-4-powerful-applications-for-employee-performance-support/ and it was featured in Christy Tucker 's newsletter too! While AI chatbots for B2C applications are widely in use, more recently companies have begun exploring the potential of AI chatbots for internal use. These custom bots cater directly to employees, aiming to simplify many of the routine or complex tasks they

I wrote this article for the September 2023 Evolve Insights newsletter: https://evolve-sg.com/long-lasting-learning-combining-drip-spaced-and-microlearning/ If you’re an instructional designer, you’re probably well aware that the key challenge isn’t just getting information into learners’ heads—it’s keeping it there. Think back to the last time you learned something valuable, especially a difficult concept, skill, or process. Maybe it was a workout routine, how to change the

I wrote this article for the September 2023 Evolve insights newsletter: https://evolve-sg.com/what-elearning-can-borrow-from-game-design-part-1/ Part 1: Elevating Your eLearning Courses With Game Design and UX Techniques Want to make your e-learning courses truly engaging? Games are about much more than points and leveling up. Let’s dig into how simple game design strategies like UX and interactions design can help you achieve that. Easy Navigation In games, a clear path oft

Miss the AI in Learning Summit 2023? Below you can watch the recording from my presentation on July 26th 2023. I review these 9 tools that can help take your eLearning to the next level: Google Bard Wordtune InVideo Whisper AI / Google CoLab Soundraw.io 7taps AI WellSaidLabs

AI generated image - Why would the robot/AI also wear glasses? Presumably to fit in with its 'nerdy' peers 😂 By Tristia Hennessey & Chat-GPT 3.5 (all human edits in green) AI text generation is in its early stages, but even now these free tools can help save hours of time when working on instructional design tasks, such as outlining, content rewriting, research, and brainstorming. In this article, we explore practical ways instructional designers can harness the power of AI

leonardo.ai generated image in 3d animation style. prompt: "a woman of color and a white man talking happily, with comic-book-like speech bubbles above their heads"; I noticed another controversial and oft commented-on trait of current AI image generation models, that any lack of detail around prompts involving "people of color" tend to invoke fairly white-washed characters - all 8 images leonardo generated with this prompt (using 2 different styles) created similar-looking,

Here's an article I recently wrote for the Evolve Solutions Group blog and newsletter: Considering the ROI of Adaptive Learning by Tristia Hennessey for Evolve Solutions Group February 2023 A Typical Training Scenario You’re taking your company’s annual compliance course on cybersecurity and email safety. You’ve been with this company for several years and you know the cybersecurity rules and procedures and took the same exact course last year, and the year before that. Neve

I took this opportunity to re-familiarize myself with tools and the movement of objects and orientation in Gravity Sketch. I've done a number of other fun sketches in the past, but since it's been over a year I needed to reorient myself with this project inspired by another video. A couple of observations from this short pet project: creating detail in an environment is a time consuming labor of love, careful observation, attention to detail, and rework, rework, rework scale

How does an AI see itself ? How would it choose to represent itself given the choice, or command? I asked Rosebud.ai ' s Synth to create images of "an AI" and "a group of AI" to see how it might choose to represent itself. Synth has several theme options, so I entered the same criteria for each one to compare the different results. Options on Synth: "an AI" - if you look closely, most the images are of some eyeball looking robotics and/or a humanoid with a distorted, unforme