E-Learning and Depression 2.0 Revisited

Prologue: Today’s post was meant to be a short piece about how the e-learning industry is faring in current market conditions, but as I carried out my research for the article, something a little more worrying emerged from the source information.

Now read on…

About a year ago, I began commenting on the affects of the current financial crisis on the e- learning industry; it's been a while, so I guess that it's about time I revisited the subject. In my post Recession and the Challenge to E-Learning in February 2008 I remarked that:

Historically, when a slowdown or organization rationalization occurs, the first against the wall are the folks in the PR, marketing, and training departments. Typically, individuals and organizations revert to previously-learned behaviors in tough times; this usually means going through the process of carrying out tried-and-tested, though not necessarily logical responses to the problems put in front of them. Outcome: tea and sympathetic chat, and the Training team get their pink slips / P45s. ...I reckon that this will be strategy undertaken by a significant number of organizations over the next year or so.

Sadly, it seems that my prediction was correct.

According to a recent Expertus/Training Industry, Inc. report: for 2009 over twice as many training professionals who responded to their survey said that they expected budget decreases rather than increases. Forty-eight percent expect their budgets to decrease in 2009, up from 41% in 2008. Less than one-fifth expect their budgets to increase in 2009, down from 31% in 2008. Similarly, since 2008 budgets were first approved, far more saw decreases (38%) than increases (11%) in funding and capital.

These data are reinforced by the findings of a 2009 Bersin & Associates study: B&A's Karen O'Leonard indicated that the U.S. corporate training market shrank from $58.5 billion in 2007 to $56.2 billion in 2008, the greatest decline in revenue in over a decade.

In a 23 January 2009 press release, Josh Bersin himself stated that

…to reduce costs, companies are switching from e-learning [my italics] to coaching, collaboration and on-the-job training methods

The press release also states:

Today’s business world demands a combination of formal and informal learning with an emphasis on collaboration, knowledge sharing, social networking, coaching, and mentoring. While formal, instructor-led training is not going away, it is becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of training budgets.

This shift in organizations' thinking and strategy merits discussion in it's own right, so I will return to the topic once I have given it more consideration.

However, I have to say that I'm not encouraged by the inaccurate terminology Mr. Bersin used in the press release: I want to know - how do Bersin & Associates define ‘e-learning’? Based upon the above statement, collaboration and knowledge-sharing in particular, but also mentoring, coaching, and OTJ training are not categories of e-learning.

I’m sure you have your own favorite definition of e-learning – I’ve included mine below – but regardless of how you define it, you are in the e-learning domain if the learning materials are

• networked
• delivered to end-users via a computer using standard internet technology
• focused on the broadest view of learning

By e-learning, Bersin & Associates of course mean "e-training" - those superannuated, expensive page-turner style self-paced courseware libraries provided by vendors like SmartForce and HMH. You may argue that I am merely fussing over semantics, and that such terminology is unimportant. Tomayto / tomahto.

When questions are investigated using quantitative analysis, the Scientific Method is being used. Contingent with that is a healthy skepticism of the assumptions and conclusions made by the investigator. This is the essence of progress, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning and criticism.

In this context I would assert that precise categorization of terms is an essential part of communicating meaning accurately. If you consider that e-learning is

The continuous assimilation of knowledge and skills by adults stimulated by synchronous and asynchronous learning events – and sometimes knowledge management outputs – which are authored, delivered engaged with, supported and administered using internet technologies,

(Morrison, D. 2004, p.4)

then we must say that the Bersin statement contradicts itself.

Based upon the Bersin & Associates data (see Table 1), what seems to be occurring is a contraction in the use by organizations of one e-learning modality (the self-paced page-turner - in a sense the methodology most aligned with traditional instructor-led workplace learning), and the growth or expansion of a range of other modalities of e-learning, based upon non-formal and informal structures, Web 2.0 principles, and the removal of intermediaries in the workplace learning & development supply chain.

Table 1 Distribution of training categories (after Bersin & Associates, 2009)

More...
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References:

Bersin & Associates (2009) 2009 Corporate Learning Factbook Reveals 11% Decline in Corporate Training Spending [Internet] Available from: http://www.bersin.com/News/Content.aspx?id=8438 Accessed 24 January 2009

Expertus (2008) Measuring Learning as Budgets Tighten [Internet] Available from: http://www.trainingefficiency.com/system/files/Survey+Results_Learning+Measurement_+Expertus_Nov08.pdf Accessed 12 January 2009

Frauenheim, E. (2009) Training Is Taking a Beating in Recession, Studies Find Workforce Management. [Internet] Available from: http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/26/12/95.php Accessed 23 January 2009

Morrison, D. (2004) E-Learning Strategies: how to get implementation and delivery right first time Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Upload Adobe Presenter content to a Learning Management System (LMS) – more

Further my recent post on Adding E-Learning Presentations to Blackboard, Brian S Friedlander was kind enough to comment on my post. He suggested that you could import e-learning presentations and courseware to LMSs like Blackboard as PDFs.

Figure 1. Presenter 7 Publish dialog box

Sure enough, Adobe Presenter 7 does have a ‘Publish to PDF’ output option (see Figure 1), accompanying the ‘Publish to My Computer’ and ‘Publish to Connect Pro’ rendering options available with the previous versions of Presenter (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Presenter 6 Publish dialog box

Having only just installed Presenter 7, and while I have published some test presentations locally, I have yet to upload any PDF-formatted content to an LMS. So, I have no idea how well this output type functions in comparison to the more traditional XML, SWF, and HTML-formatted e-learning content package when it’s deployed from an online or networked platform.

I will carry out one of my famous comparisons between the two formats at some point in the future. My preliminary view is that the ability to distribute content as a PDF certainly opens up some interesting possibilities and opportunities.

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References:

Adobe Presenter 7 Homepage: http://www.adobe.com/products/presenter/

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Adding E-Learning Presentations to Blackboard

Today’s Question: how do you turn this:

in to this?

You have to read the blog post to find out.

Now read on…

If you’ve read The E-Learning Curve Blog recently, you’ll know that I have been creating quite a number of demos over the last seven weeks or so. Undertaking this activity has inspired me to write about some “back to basics” e-learning topics (including my recent evaluation of Camtasia and Captivate), and today I’m going to address the question “OK, I have my content, how do I upload it to an LMS?”

But first a (sort of) digression…

I facilitated a conference on Third-Level Distance Education and E-learning in late 2008. We covered many topics during the proceedings, including

• Online Teaching and Learning
• The Economics of E-Learning
• Assessment in On-line Education
• Impact of E-learning

Now don’t get me wrong – all of the above are highly interesting and useful topics, and I’ll talk ‘til the cows come home on any or all of them. My favorite part of these events however, is where I introduce and guide the audience through some hands-on e-learning content generation using any one of a number of content authoring tools.

To show (sometimes skeptical) participants just how easy it is to do this, I present a two-hour workshop called How to Create E-learning in Just Four Mouse Clicks (‘Four Clicks’ for short, in honor of the similarly-named Led Zeppelin song) …and as this is the digression I’m not going to elaborate any further on the Four Clicks workshop.

So digression over: once you have your e-learning content, what next? Well, you can always play it from your PC or Mac of course, but what you really need to do is load it into an environment where the audience can access it, which means placing the content on a Learning Management System (LMS) like one of the flavors of Blackboard.

Uploading content to an LMS is easy, but it’s not intuitive. Computers are obvious and logical. The logical and obvious approach is to pick through all of the ShockWave Flash (SWF) files, find the largest one (because that contains the content – right?) and use the Browse feature of your LMS to upload the content.

This inevitably ends in failure, because there’s more to distributing learning materials online that just the content (I’ll talk about IMS manifests, specifications and metadata in the future). In fact, the process is quite straight-forward, and I could outline the steps here – that was the original intent of today’s post, but on reflection, I considered that it would probably be more useful if I created a PDF “How To” guide that you could download and keep close in your “My Useful E-Learning Stuff” directory on your local drive, to pull out when you need it, rather than trying to find the instructions buried in a blog entry.

For the purposes of this document, the presentation is created in Adobe Presenter, and was uploaded to Blackboard, but the process is common across most authoring tools and delivery platforms.

Click here to open the Adding Adobe Presenter presentations to Blackboard PDF (requires Adobe Reader).

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Adobe (finally) release eLearning Suite

We’ve all been using Adobe products for years. Even the most non-techie “I-can’t-find-the-Any-key” computer user almost certainly has the Flash Player installed in their browser; if you’re an learning professional of my vintage (30’s) you’ve probably encountered Authorware, Director, and Flash at some point in your career. More recently (as discussed on The E-Learning Curve Blog last week) Adobe have contributed significantly to the adoption of Rapid E-Learning through the ongoing development of easy-to-use tools like Captivate (currently on version 4) to enable learning and development pros create content without having to be a competent or proficient coder or media expert.

Finally, Adobe have recognized that like graphics, DTP, and digital / video media production, e-learning is a significant market vertical for their applications, and have released the Adobe eLearning Suite (eLS). According to their website, eLearning Suite

…software integrates best-of-breed tools for rapid eLearning, courseware authoring, simulations, and media editing. Create rich, interactive learning experiences that engage audiences with video, audio, and powerful visuals. Work productively with rapid authoring tools that deliver smart collaboration features as well as tight integration with asset-creation tools. And deliver content to the web, the desktop, mobile devices, and Learning Management Systems.

The suite consists of the following apps:

	Tool	Adobe's Description
	Adobe Captivate® 4	Create and deliver rich interactive content
	Adobe Dreamweaver® CS4 with CourseBuilder Extension	Design, develop, and maintain standards-based websites and applications
	Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional with Learning Interactions	Create and deliver rich interactive content
	Adobe Photoshop® CS4 Extended	Discover new dimensions in digital imaging
	Adobe Presenter 7	Rapidly create high-impact Adobe Flash presentations and eLearning courses from PowerPoint
	Adobe Soundbooth® CS4	Create and edit audio with ease
	Adobe Acrobat® 9 Pro	Protect documents and accelerate information exchange with PDF

Quite impressive – if I was starting work today and I was handed this set of applications as my content development toolkit, I would be very happy indeed. Similarly, as you can see from Figure 1 (below) the Suite’s workflow plays to the strengths of the individual applications. I would assert that this workflow is industry-standard practice, as already implemented by most e-learning developers worth their fee, so no surprises there.

Figure 1. eLS workflow

However, where I think Adobe missed a trick is that they should have released this (or a similar) package at least five years ago. While we can say that in the early 2000’s , the e-learning industry wasn’t as large a market segment as it is today, it was substantial enough. Certainly enough of a market segment to be a valuable revenue-generating stream for the company. Unlike DTP, graphical design, and video post-production (which were digitized evolutions of existing industries) e-learning was a whole new industry, a real-life child of the World Wide Web.

Think of the opportunity they had to build a loyal and growing customer- and user base if they had released this suite in 2002, and you’ll realize what they let slip through their corporate fingers. As it stands, learning professionals in the past had to build their own toolkits: at this stage I’m not going to change from SoundForge to Soundbooth, for example, or from DocBookXML and XXE to Acrobat Pro - but I will of course keep using Captivate, Flash and Dreamweaver.

So I’ll give with one hand and take away with the other: well done Adobe, great to see you’ve finally committed to e-learning; equally, an e-learning suite of tools is such an obvious addition to your product range that you should have done this years ago.

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A reliable and straightforward guide to using Moodle 1.9

I opened my copy of Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development by William Rice with a high expectation that it would be an informative and practical reference text. Why? I was about to upgrade to Moodle 1.9. Did it meet my expectations?

Now read on...

Using open source software can be a daunting experience, regardless of your technical or business experience, and this text's purpose is to shorten users' path to competency in the application. Broadly speaking, the text covers four Moodle-related activities:

• Installing and configuring Moodle 1.9
• E-Learning course development and delivery
• E-Learning course management
• Moodle administration and maintenance

The author assumes zero previous knowledge of the application, and begins by describing Moodle’s Social-Constructionist approach to learning, before bringing the reader on a whistle-stop tour of Moodle 1.9’s features and functionality– a very good idea indeed, as this goes some way to providing an understanding of why Moodle 1.9 looks and works the way it does for newcomers, acts as a pertinent reminder for experienced Moodlers, and sets the context for the course creation sections later in the book.

The book is structured in a logical and linear fashion: the author aims to guide you through the full application implementation and course development process. The text seems to be aimed primarily at teachers and trainers and the author spends the majority of the manual discussing – in detail and very effectively - the processes, “how-to’s” and “gotchas” of using Moodle from a teaching and training perspective. I must point out that something strange must have happened during the editing process of the book, as there’s some glaring typos (and even a whole word omitted from the back cover of the text) which are a distraction, but do not deter from the usability of the manual.

Moodle at Michael Hanley Consulting

As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, this book was my companion through a recent upgrade from Moodle 1.6 to 1.9, and it did not let me down. As an experienced Moodle user, I used the book very much as a “just enough, just in time” resource rather than as an end-to-end guide through the application. My experience was that the text works very well when used in this fashion. Some other positive aspects of my “user experience” of the text included the author’s accessible and direct writing style and use of web-based resources like a downloadable Moodle Project Plan. In my view this text is a straightforward and reliable companion for those who seek to find out more about – and use – Moodle 1.9.

As a taster for the text, click here to download a chapter from the book (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).

_____________

References:

Rice, W. (2008) Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development Packt Publishing Ltd. Birmingham, UK.

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The E-Learning Curve Blog Joins the eLearning Learning Community

I’m delighted to announce that the E-Learning Curve Blog has joined the eLearning Learning community. eLearning Learning is

a community that tries to collect and organize the best information on the web that will help you learn and stay current on eLearning.

In a response to a Learning Circuits Blog Big Question a few months ago, I described myself as a ‘learnivore:’

I continually acquire new knowledge and information through my Web-, book-, podcast-, and presentation reading, blogging (reading and writing), academic study and research, and work-based learning-related tasks. These activities are drivers for the information I try to take on board in my attempts to enhance my skills, abilities, and expertise.

This sounds great in theory, but in practice it means that I must carefully manage my time to ensure that I can stay current with the best that all of the above (especially the e-learning blogging community) have to contribute. For the last 18 months, I have used Google reader, Foxmarks, del.icio.us and Bloglines to manage my RSS feeds and interesting links. All of these utilities are great, but having four tools to aggregate and store content is inefficient, particularly as I don’t just subscribe to e-learning blogs. eLearning Learning enables me to access a range of regularly updated e-learning content with the click of a mouse button.

In my view, eLearning Learning’s value is threefold (see Figure 1):

1. It’s a single location when you can access the cream of e-learning blogs and commentary from a diverse range of contributors
2. Those contributors write some of my favorite blogs including Clive on Learning, eLearning Technology, elearnspace, Informal Learning, Jane Hart - Pick of the Day, Kapp Notes, Lars is Learning and the Rapid eLearning Blog… as well as a bunch of really interesting blogs I’m looking forward to getting to know.
3. It’s an easy-to-use, web-based interface – perfect (and appropriate) to view content from the main page area, by keyword or blog name. Similarly, find content using the search functionality.

The easiest way to discover the site is to simply go there and check it out. In the meantime I’ve created a (very) short demo highlighting some of the features: just click on the image to view the presentation.

Figure 1. eLearning Learning homepage

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Capture that E-learning Demo 4: Captivate and Camtasia, concluded

Continuing my evaluation of Captivate and Camtasia Studio...

In my previous posting, I discussed the two applications' user interfaces and audio capabilities. Today, I will look at workflow and usability.

Captivate Usability

Captivate offers three customizable capture presets - demonstrations, assessment simulations, and training simulations. If you choose an assessment simulation, Captivate won’t capture mouse movements that highlight boxes, or text captions that would tell the learner how to proceed in the assessment. In demonstration mode, Captivate doesn’t include Click boxes, since it assumes that the audience is passively viewing the content.

As mentioned last time, Captivate uses an object-orientated paradigm to develop content. As such, events and interactions are captured as a series of screens. In edit mode, the content author can flexibly create new screens, import content (in a number of formats including AVI, PPT, and FLV), change the sequence of events, and delete unused content. As you can see from Figure 1, the edit tab look-and-feel is a combination of the Macromedia / Adobe Unified User Interface and Microsoft PowerPoint: this indicates to me that Adobe are targeting users familiar with developing content in the latter program as their core market for Captivate.

Figure 1. Detailed view of the Captivate UI.

[Click here to view larger image]

In this context, the UI works very well indeed; you can actually create a PowerPoint presentation in it's native format, import it to Captivate, enhance it with motion-based media, animations, quizzes, and audio narration, and generate a learning object with ease. The inclusion of a timeline at the center-top of the UI is reminiscent of Flash and Director, so users familiar with these authoring tools can transition to Captivate-based content creation. The timeline also contains the vector-based mouse layer, which enables the modification of the mouse motion track in a demo or slide,

Compared to Camtasia, Captivate captures a broader range of text and interactive elements. The author can also add Text Entry boxes, clickable buttons, animations and text animations. Once an element is added to the timeline, it can be lengthened, reduced, and repositioned, which allows for a high level of precision - count on spending plenty of time tweaking the automatically captured elements to get the timing right.

Camtasia's Usability

If you've ever used Windows Movie Maker, you will be familiar with the Camtasia Studio UI. The interface is based on the video editing suite paradigm and includes all the common features of this editing environment - a preview window, a timeline where edits are made, a clip bin, and effects (cross fade, contrast/brightness etc) controls. Since Camtasia captures all mouse and screen events, it’s perfect for developing process flows, hot to's and application demonstrations. Camtasia does not automatically generate onscreen text media like callouts, but they can be added manually in post-production. As with Captivate, TechSmith's program allows for very precise location of callouts and highlights. Similarly Flash Hot Spots—callouts with additional Flash properties— can be included - though you have to render the entire project to view their operation, which is a nuisance (Captivate facilitates a single frame, five frame, or entire movie preview which is great for testing interactive functionality). It is possible to add quizzes in Camtasia, but the results are not scored as they are in Captivate.

Conclusions
And so this is where I came in: I still don't know which application I prefer. Used together as part of your e-learning content development toolkit, the applications will provide you with the ability to cover most (if not all) e-learning development eventualities. Because of my own professional background in digital media development, I feel more at home using Camtasia, but that does not mean that it's better at what it does. In terms of Camtasia's advantages I could highlight the better digital media manipulation, sophisticated features like zoom-and-pan, and wider range of output formats that Captivate just can't match. On the other hand, Captivate is much more capable and easier to use when creating assessments and simulations, especially with its ability to preview Click Boxes and other user input in Preview mode.

A comment contributor to the E-Learning Curve Blog called rjnagle was kind enough to share their experience of the apps with me:

Captivate has lots of quirks that take getting used to. I haven't used the elearning capabilities, only the demo capabilities.

First, the html output consists of several swf files, several of whom reference the other. It can be troublesome to put on a website.

Some basic editing features end up taking a lot of time. (for example, I've never figured out how to crop the beginning of an animation, only the end). I notice that sometimes when you impose text it will append dead time at the end.

I wish there were a way to speed up the animation time so that it plays more rapidly.

Also, despite the claims of the documentation, you simply can't attach more than one slide to an audio clip. It causes lots of problems.

I do like the fact you can import slides from other projects into the current one.
-

They go on:

I have been disillusioned about Captivate, but once I recognize what it does well, I can manage.

The problem is that on the job you typically are able to choose one or the other, not both.

As I said when I began this series, each program has uniquely excellent functionality.

In the context of my contributor rjnagle, I would have to suggest that if your requirements center on demo development (and not e-learning), Camtasia Studio is the better tool. As for me? Well... I would assert that (for the moment) both tools are essential. Once you become familiar with their strengths, weaknesses, and quirks, it is hard to imagine working without either one.

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Find Out More:

Adobe Captivate Homepage

TechSmith Camtasia Studio Homepage

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Capture that E-learning Demo 3: Captivate and Camtasia

In the previous two blog posts, I outlined – at a very high level - some of the features and functionality of TechSmith Camtasia Studio and Adobe Captivate, and in today’s post I will provide a equally high level assessment of these products, not so much in comparison to each other, but rather more at tools that enable learning professionals to create immersive, media-rich demonstrations and learning objects.

Now read on…

Writing this review has proven to be a much more difficult (and time-consuming) task that I had anticipated it would be; in fact, I can say that I experience a mild cognitive dissonance whenever I’m asked the question “which do you prefer (or recommend): Camtasia or Captivate?”

The answer is I don’t know. Or more accurately, I still don’t know. More on this later. Like most people (in any industry) I tend to have a single ‘weapon of choice’ for each task I undertake. Last weekend I spent some time doing some DIY around the house for example, and despite owning many screwdrivers, I always return to my trusty old Stanley DynaGrip 10, pretty much regardless of the gluing and screwing job I’m doing. Similarly when I post-produce video I use one editor – Vegas Video, when I edit audio the files are authored in SoundForge, and I use DreamWeaver to do 95% of my HTML and website- related production. But when it comes to authoring demos? Well… there I have a problem. Inevitably I run mentally run through the dialog that I am about to share with you, dear reader.

Adobe Captivate and TechSmith Camtasia Studio are similar e-learning content development tools with uniquely different strong points. If you’re creating a software demo, or a PowerPoint presentation to deliver online, Camtasia is a better application; conversely, if you’re making interactive web-based training, or a complex software demonstration, Captivate is superior is definitely the tool for the task.

Even where their functionality converges, their operating procedures and user interface are so different that each will probably appeal to different users. If (like me) your background is in media production, you’ll find Camtasia easy to learn and use, and Captivate frustrating. On the other hand, if you’re used to authoring content in PowerPoint, you’ll find Camtasia a strange, and Captivate more intuitive and fit-for-purpose.

Figure 1. Captivate UI (above), Camtasia UI (below).

[Click image to enlarge]

Beyond these, however, are certain functions at which one product excels and the other either doesn’t perform or performs quite poorly. For example, Camtasia excels at capturing streaming video content, which Captivate cannot do. If you need to ‘pan and scan’ a close-up of a screen element of the content that you’ve captured, Camtasia is your only choice. However, the reverse pertains if you’re creating a quiz - Captivate offers a much richer toolset. Similarly Captivate’s ability to generate Word or PDF versions of files for hardcopy distribution is a fantastic timesaver.

Indeed, the more you use both tools, the more you begin to realize that if you’re authoring a range of e-learning, demonstration, and presentation projects, you probably really need both .

Using Camtasia
Like most screen-capture utilities, Camtasia captures a video of the screen as you interact with it, with added audio if you enable narration, as well as Picture-in-Picture (PIP) video if you add a webcam. The resultant CAMREC output file is a recording of all of the audio, video and interaction elements. In editing mode, Camtasia enables the addition of multiple tracks for captions, breakout boxes, callouts, PIP, quizzes, and so on.

Using Captivate
Captivate works differently. Rather than capturing one multiplexed file, Captivate captures the user’s interactions as a series of screens, each containing one mouse click and movement. Very much like its progenitor Flash, Captivate stores each object of each captured screen as a separate element. As with Camtasia, you may add additional content enhancements – 508-compliant closed captioning, callouts, quizzes, etc in post-production.

Audio
Both applications enable the author to either record audio narration in real time during capture time, or import MP3 or WAV audio in post-production. In my experience, Captivate audio recorded in real time loses synchronization over the duration of the recording: this becomes especially noticeable in 20-minute-plus recordings and can be very frustrating to remediate. However you can add post-content captured audio slide by slide (tedious), or by importing a completed audio file. A very neat feature of Captivate is that it recognizes audio markers, so if you include these in your WAV or MP3 file, it will synchronize with the slides in the presentation. I have also noticed that the audio generated by Captivate can be pretty ropey (even though it’s MP3 format) – in fact, at some of the lower sample- and bit rates, it reminds me of the horrible .VOX format I had to use in my Authorware days, back in the last century.

In my view, Camtasia Studio provides a much more easy-to-use and intuitive audio recording and editing experience. The fact that you can see all the audio on a timeline layer means that you can see how the audio fits in context with the presentation's ‘big picture.’ The ability to split audio and move it around the timeline is an added bonus. Similarly, I feel that the audio enhancement features – normalization, noise reduction (NR) and so on – are easier to preview and use in Camtasia. In terms of outputs, there no end to your choice of formats – MP3, WAV, and WMA. The facility to render podcast-formatted audio is a very cool feature that Captivate just can’t compete with.

This concludes this part of my head-to-head review.

Next time: Video editing, content rendering, and my conclusions.

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Capture that E-learning Demo 2: Captivate

As I’m doing a lot of demos at the moment, I thought that it would be apposite to discuss demo capturing and authoring tools. Yesterday, it was the turn of Camtasia, today, it’s Adobe Captivate.

Adobe Captivate is an e-learning tool (for Microsoft Windows) which can be used to author software demonstrations, software simulations, branched scenarios, and quizzes for distribution online or via CD-ROM.

Recording
Even before the term 'Rapid E-Learning' was coined (and Captivate was RoboDemo), this app was designed to be an e-learning authoring tool. As such, once opened, the author is presented with three recording modes (Software Simulation, Scenario Simulation, Other), depending on the activity you want to undertake. To capture content, the author carries out each step in the demonstration, in sequence. As with Camtasia, it's possible to cycle between applications without interrupting the recording process. The author can pause or stop recording (at which point the software renders the media that has been captured) at any point. When the recording (or a section of a larger recording) is complete, Captivate opens in editing mode.

Post-production
Once the presentation has been captured, the content is displayed as a number of discrete slide, representing each interaction of the recording. A timeline is available to integrate audio, onscreen text, and other enhancements. Similar to Camtasia, the author can record audio while screen-capturing is in progress. In edit mode, the author can import, record and edit a voice-over narration and other audio elements into the presentation.

Deployment
Captivate saves files in a proprietary *.CP format, which is only readable by Captivate. Content is generated as ShockWave Flash (*>SWF), which can be played on most computers via a browser with the (nearly) ubiquitous Flash Player plug-in.

Uses
Once exported, content is easily distributed to a wide audience; as well a online delivery, content can also be distributed via CD-ROM or DVD, by e-mail, and on Adobe Connect. Learners can easily access Captivate content through learning management systems (LMSs) and content management systems (CMSs). Captivate is both AICC and SCORM conformant, facilitating learner usage tracking, as well as through scored quizzes and other interactions.

Instructional Uses
Captivate enables learning professionals to create new content and transform existing learning collateral in a (relatively) easy-to-use "one-stop" media creating environment. It's unified API means that very little programming experience is needed to generate attractive, immersive e-learning content.

Criticisms
As well as the positives, Captivate has some deficiencies; integrating, editing audio can be tricky, as can estimating slide duration; it's a bit of a memory hog on long presentations, or content containing a range of media assets; it can take a LONG time to generate content. In terms of rendered files, it's reliance on the SWF format, rather than, say Flash Video *.FLV) can make download times quite long when compared to its competitors. Finally, in an increasingly mobile world, devices like the iPhone cannot be used for playback.

Tomorrow:

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Captivate vs. Camtasia - Head-to-head in a Fight for the Byte – It’s an E-Learning Authoring Tool Deathmatch!

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By The Way: I’m toying with the idea of using Articulate: any experiences / war stories / opinions?

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Capture that E-learning Demo 1: Camtasia

Getting right back to basics here, but what a good way to start the new year! So, if you’re new to e-learning courseware development, read on…

Ever wondered how to capture demos for delivery online ?

I generally use two pieces of software to capture high-quality, post-produced demos. In this blog entry, I'll give you a bit of background on Camtasia Studio, and in the next blog post I'll discuss Adobe Captivate.

Camtasia Studio is a screen video capture program for Microsoft Windows, published by TechSmith. It is a screen-recording application that allows users to record almost anything on a computer screen, including application demonstrations and PowerPoint presentations. Users are able to use their own computers to demonstrate some aspect of motion-based content.

The presenter defines the area of the screen or the window to be captured before recording begins; it is also possible to capture the entire screen area.

Recording
Once Camtasia's recording mode is activated, the presenter carries out all steps of the demonstration, in sequence. It is possible to move between applications without interrupting the recording process. The presenter can pause or stop recording at any time - at which point the software renders the input that has been captured - as well as apply user-defined settings, such as when and how to display the cursor.

Post-production
Once the presentation has been captured, the presenter is able to revise it by integrating multiple recordings, if required (and this is typically the case on longer-form demos and course learning objects). In addition, the presenter can dub in a voice-over narration, sound effects, as well as music onto the presentation. Camtasia also allows audio recording while screen-capturing is in progress, so the presenter can narrate the demonstration as it is carried out. Most presenters, however, prefer to wait until they have finished the screen capture, and then record the narration from a script as the application is playing back the recorded capture.

Deployment
The application allows files to be stored in its own proprietary *.CAMREC format, which is only readable by Camtasia itself; this format allows for quite small file sizes, even for longer presentations. Much more useful is that Camtasia also allows the generated video stream to be exported to common video formats which can be read by most computers, even if the Camtasia software is not installed, such as Flash FLV & SWF, Windows WMV and MPEG-4. MP3 audio and podcast files may also be generated.

Uses
Once exported, content is easily distributed to a wide audience; highly compressed files, such as files encoded in the FLV format are especially suitable for distribution online via platforms like Adobe Connect.

Instructional Uses

Camtasia is popular among instructors and learners because presentations are easy to produce and distribute, saving instructors the time to repeat presentations many times, especially in courses that teach a certain application or computing environment. Many learners appreciate the ease with which Camtasia-produced presentations can be viewed, especially presentations that are embedded into a web page and are shown in the client browser window.

Criticisms
One of Camtasia's primary shortcomings is its long rendering times and excessive consumption of system resources during production. Output file generation times can be improved by using newer hardware, such as a dual processor system, as well as an increased amount of RAM.

Next Time: Captivate

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