A Funny Thing Happened At The Lectora User Conference!

A funny thing happened at the 2012 Lectora user Conference. I found my new e-learning development software, and it's not Lectora!

So there I was at the 2012 Lectora user Conference, visiting all the exhibitors, which were new at this conference, and I stumble upon the good folks at 'E-Learning Uncovered', a totally unbiased vendor who writes how-to books on e-learning development software. During my conversation I candidly asked them their opinion on the new Lectora 11 that was being announced at the conference compared to the new Articulate Storyline product I had heard so much about.

Without droning on with all the details, the E-Learning Uncovered reps advised me that they were waiting with baited breath for the Lectora 11 feature announcement taking place later in the conference. If Lectora could pull a rabbit out of the hat and incorporate a timeline and audio syncing ability, in addition to some sort of screen capturing tool, they just might be included in the conversation with Articulate's new Storyline tool, which they heralded as a "Do-It-All Game Changer"!

So there I am, sitting at the much anticipated Lectora 11 presentation listening to all the new features, waiting and hoping for mention of a timeline, syncing, screen capture, something, but it never came. Now I like the folks at Lectora and they really do put on one heck of a conference, but all that really doesn't help me once I get home, and I was extremely disappointed that none of the features I was hoping for were announced.

When I arrived back home I immediately downloaded the Articulate Storyline trial and just as quickly fell in love with it. PowerPoint feel, easy to use, syncing, audio recording tools, timeline, screen recording,variables, layering, and more. Pretty much anything and everything you could ask for!

Like most times when I attend a conference of this nature I am required to give a presentation to the entire team regarding what I learned at the conference (gotta justify the investment right?), and you should have seen the look on everyone's faces when my Lectora User Conference presentation concludes with recommending we invest in Articulate Storyline as our new primary e-learning development tool. I'm glad to report that by bosses listened, and I am now the proud owner of a Storyline license, as is my development colleague.

Storyline has it all people, so if you're looking for a single stand-alone tool for all your e-learning development needs, there's not a better one out there than Articulate Storyline. Take this new kick-butt Storyline tool and package it up with the absolutely unrivaled support and forum's Tom Kuhlmann and team has put together, and you have a top-notch head of the class solution set!

By the way, I still have Lectora, but I use it only as a wrapper these days for things I develop in Captivate (Which I may not be using for very much longer either once I master the Storyline screen capturing tool).

Lectora Inspire Reviewed

I just got done checking out Lectora Inspire, the latest installment of Lectora by Trivantis. For those familiar with the Lectora product, it's basically Lectora bundled with SnagIt (For basic image capture and editing), Camtasia (For screen recording), and Flypaper (for creating flash-based interactions and animations). I would have loved to see Captivate instead of Camtasia, but in my opinion the inclusion of these additional tools keeps Lectora on my list of must-have's when it comes to e-Learning development tools.

My favorite of the new features has to be Flypaper. I had heard of this application before but never got the opportunity to fiddle with it, until now. I must of spent a good 5 hours at home one evening just playing around with Flypaper and I have to say that it does some pretty cool stuff. It does have a layer of complication associated with it for some things, but overall it makes it very easy to create some pretty slick flash animations and interactions, not to mention that it's a breeze to incorporate anything you create directly into Lectora.

I really like this new version of Lectora and the inclusion of SnagIt, Camtasia and Flypaper, but what I don't like is the cost. I currently have 7 licenses of Lectora 2008 and it would cost me over 11K to upgrade these 7 licenses to Lectora Inspire. I'm not sure my company is gonna front the bill for this so I'm slightly turned off by the high price tag. Other than that though I highly recommend Lectora Inspire.

Lectora still needs to work on their assessment engine (I still use Articulate Quizmaker for all my assessments). Figured I had to crow-bar that in.

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.

My Arsenal of e-Learning Tools.

I'm always curious what other developers have in their 'tools' portfolio so in the spirit of not being selfish, here is my e-Learning arsenal of tools.

Lectora - Up until recently this was my primary development tool. A simple-as-pie WYSIWYG editor that makes it a snap to do the basics (Mouse-over, show & hides, etc.). It has a built-in assessment/quiz tool but with the exception of the Multiple Choice and True/False it sorta bites. Image import is as easy and drag-and-drop and you can import flash files, videos, etc. The biggest compliment to Lectora is it's ease of use. I like it as the primary tool that I embed content into. Also a nice tool for building websites.

Articulate - I have most of the suite of Articulate products (Presenter, Engage, QuizMaker) and after some trepidation at first, I have really warmed up to this PowerPoint to e-Learning tool. If anything it has forced me to improve my PowerPoint skills three-fold. Although it lacks some of the most basic of e-Learning functionality like having a button change color on mouse-over, or easily doing show & hides on one page, it makes up for it's deficiencies in other avenues. Unleash the beast, learn PowerPoint and make some cool stuff with this bad-boy. Two words; Animations and Annotations!

Adobe Captivate - My tool of choice for system simulations. Open an application, click record and your output is a very cool simulation. Think of it as a screen recording tool on steroids. You can even create stand-alone courses in Captivate, although I've never done this because I'm not comfortable with the SCORM output or incorporation into my LMS. I usually take my Captivate output and embed it into Lectora or Articulate. Both Lectora and Artciulate make SCORM/LMS publishing very easy.

Adobe Flash - Although I have used this tool less when the newer version forced you to learn Actionscript, I still like it to create simple text and image animations, plus I like to snag free flash animations (there's a ton of them out there) and then manipulate them to my liking.

Adobe Photoshop - The industry standard for image creation and manipulation. I use it to create buttons, text, and edit images I might purchase from a service like iStock Photo. Although I have recently been able to create some very cool things in PowerPoint using Clipart, I still rely on Photoshop for the heavy lifting.

Audacity - This is a free audio editing software and I just love it for recording and editing audio. A must have for your portfolio, especially considering it's free.