Create a "Roll" Effect in Articulate!

This video will show you how to create a "Roll" effect using Articulate Presenter and PowerPoint. There's definitely room for improvement here so leave a comment if you can find a way to improve this effect.

Inspiration is Everywhere, Just Look Around!

I look everywhere for inspiration, TV, Movies, Billboards, Magazines, etc. Here are two ideas I got from TV commercials the other night that would work great for your title page. These are very easy to create and provide much more impact than just a static image.

Captivate & Lectora Can Interact!

I had this post previously with text and screen shots and decided to replace it with this SCREENR video. I tend to like these better so thought you would too.

The video below demonstrated how you can get Captivate to talk to Lectora. In this case I needed a Lectora 'Next' button to stay hidden until the Captivate movie was done playing. Enjoy! If the video appears a little off-center, just click it and it should straighten out. I noticed this during preview but not sure why it's happening.

Simple Tips To Reduce Course Maintenance!

Ask anyone who works with me and they'll tell you that post-publish course maintenance is not my favorite thing. You've been there right? You just put the spit & polish on your course, packaged and published it to your LMS and then the next day you get a laundry list of updates. Maintenance is an unavoidable aspect of development. It comes with the territory, however there are some things you can do to reduce course maintenance.

• Avoid using actual names in your course, for if that individual changes jobs or leaves the company it will require changes to your course. Instead of saying "Bill Jones, Head of Security", just say "Head of Security". That way if Bill Jones moves on you don't have to change your course.
  
  
• Link out to often changing processes rather than embedding them directly in your course. These procedures and processes are going to change and if you have the procedure specifics in your course you will have to change your course every time these procedures change. If you link to the procedures instead you will not have to update your course when the procedure change.
  
  
• Avoid over-using system screen shots if possible. Systems usually have scheduled releases and change frequently. If you have screen shots of a system in your course and the system changes (Even slightly) you will be required to obtain new screen shots and update your course. Now sometimes you have to put screen shots, but sometimes you can get away with being more generic. For example; Let's say I'm only explaining a Submit button on a certain screen, rather than include a screen shot I will just include a solo Submit button, that way even if the screen gets a face lift my course won't require maintenance.
  
  
• Avoid using dates in your course if possible. If your course points out specific dates things happened then your course will inevitably become stale and require maintenance. Instead of saying "Released in 2010, Release 6 of Acme system contains the following feature enhancements", just keep it generic and say "Acme system feature enhancements include".
  
  
• If your course has audio, do it yourself. I once commissioned a fellow employee (who had a nice deep radio-like voice) to record the narrative for one of my courses. It was all wonderful until I needed to change something, at which point I was now reliant on this individual and working around their schedule. Worse yet is that this person eventually left the company and I was forced to re-record ALL of the narrative. Not Fun!
  
  
• If you have audio narrative in your course, break it up into many short clips. This way if something changes you only have a small audio clip to update, rather than long one's. I had a colleague once who was creating audio narrative for a course and the audio on each page averaged about 2 or more minutes. I was helping with the technical recording aspect and maintenance was tedious to say the least. For even the most minor change (sometimes only one or two words) my peer was forced to re-record the entire 2 minute clip. Keep em' short and reduce maintenance.

I would love to hear any tips you might have to reduce maintenance, so leave a comment and let me hear it.

Articulate, I didn't know I could do that!

If you're like me you subscribe to a few e-learning blogs, mailing lists etc. and are exposed to the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly. In my recent web surfing expedition I uncovered a really cool post at 'The eLearning Coach' titled : "10 Best Articulate Presenter Tricks & Tips" that I thought was very interesting. Things like replacing the side-panel with an image, adding custom Flash files as a Player Tab, Creating nifty Zoom & Pan effects, and more. Check it out, I learned a thing or two in this post. By the way I really dig the Screenr videos, I'm gonna have to jump into that arena sometime soon. I think the firewalls and proxies at my work block it though so I may have to do some convincing. Just thought I would share that last nugget cause' I know you were sitting there wishing I would share some irrelevant personal issues with you.

Do You Really Need A Storyboard?

I'm often asked my opinion about the relevance of Storyboards in the e-learning development process, so I thought I would address my opinion here in this post. Let me start by saying that if your company's process requires a Storyboard then you don't have much choice, so this post more applies to those who are lucky enough to have flexibility when it comes to these types of decisions.

In my opinion there are situations where a Storyboard makes sense, and situations where it doesn't, so here's my short & sweet take on Storyboard relevance.

Makes Sense:

• When your course includes audio narrative. Having a storyboard with the audio narrative can be useful as a script for you (or your voice talent).

• When there are multiple developers, or a designer/developer relationship. If more than one person will have a hand in the development of the course it makes sense to have a Storyboard to maintain continuity.

Doesn't Make Sense:

• When developing a standard course with no audio. Some argue with me on this one, but I'm sticking to my guns here. With today's technology and environment of rapid e-Learning development you can build the course in your product(s) with the time it takes to create a Storyboard. Storyboards rarely look like the end-product, require a lot of maintenance and with all the interactivity we put in today's courses, it becomes more and more difficult to accurately represent interaction on a static storyboard. Your finished course can be a Storyboard as far as I'm concerned.

I would love to hear your opinions on Storyboard relevance so leave a comment and let's hear ya.