eLearning: Are you Captivating or Articulating?

Okay, I realize that the title lacks true wit but I wanted to discuss eLearning software today, particularly Articulate and Captivate. But first , I hope that everyone was able to honor our soldiers today, Memorial Day 2011.

As my career in training and facilitation evolves, I am incorporating more and more technology to produce training materials. Recently I purchased Adobe Captivate 5 (as well as Adobe CS5) and I signed up for a review copy of Articulate Presenter ’09.

I have not had a chance to install the Articulate Presenter (compressed file is still resting in my downloads folder); however, to start getting some return on my investment in the Captivate software, I started by experimenting a little on my own and then following instructions from a tutorial book from a company called Iconlogic. As such, this blog will cover my learning brief experience with Captivate to date (ease of use review), and I will add a review of Articulate at a later time.

In my first venture without the training book, I decided to create a new Captivate project from a PowerPoint. I chose a presentation I used when teaching a Microsoft Project class. The program read my PowerPoint presentation fairly quickly and I was able to select which slides I wanted to include in the Captivate project. I added audio to several slides and everything seemed to go well

However, before I could continue with this practice activity, I had to put the program to use with an actual client.

The project: Create a demo for two associates who would be required to import spreadsheet reports and create a monthly management summary.

I proceeded to use this new software in my usual way (hunting through menus and attempting to use my basic knowledge of menu organization logic) before I resolved to open the help files. I was successful in recording from the spreadsheet program, along with the audio recording of my instructions.

However, when I attempted to publish/export the captivate project to Flash, an error message appeared. The file exported but when I played it, the video played at lightning speed, which meant the audio was incomprehensible. After multiple attempts to adjust the settings from hints I found online, and the second and third takes of the recording, I decided to walk away from the computer, which has the Windows Vista operating system installed.

I picked up my Windows 7 computer and recorded a quick demo and I delighted to see that the project exported without error, and played correctly in web browser, at the correct speed and with audio. I recorded the full version of the demo, posted all the files on the web and my client acknowledged that everything worked.

I have not had time to investigate but I suspect that my newer version of Captivate may not be supported on my 32 bit version of Vista, which would indicate that I did not read the requirements completely when I purchased the software!

Has anyone else had problems with Captivate on Windows Vista? What techniques did you use to resolve them?

Let’s share ideas!

What’s in a name? Prezi

What’s in a name? Well, there’s certainly not much in the name but there’s certainly quite a bit in the functionality of Prezi. Prezi is an online presentation software far more advanced than the desktop software programs that I have used in the past.

Prezi presentations play like a Flash movie that a presenter can control with the click and roll of a mouse. A few basic templates are available in the free account and images can be uploaded to the presentation.   I am impressed by the design and user interface. There are some basic instructions found at http://prezi.com/learn/getting-started :

01 Double click anywhere to write

02 Zoom in to develop your ideas

03 Use the zebra for structure and size

04 Add images from the Insert menu

05 Create your storyline

06 Click ‘Show’ to present!

So it seems pretty simple to use—I wrote “seems” because I am just getting started and I haven’t explored the extent of the program’s capability. I have completed steps 01 and 02 of a sample presentation that I will present to a potential client on 10/18. I will of course create a web PowerPoint just in case the presentation will not play on my client’s computer. I will update this blog, if necessary, to report any roadblocks!

Try it out! Prezi is free to use! Go to http://prezi.com. Important note: if you sign up for the free account status, then the presentations that you create will be visible to the general public. There is a very affordable subscription plan as well.

Let me know what you think about this software and how you’re using it. Let’s share ideas!

The Hype of Skype

I’ve been using Skype for over two years now and despite the occasional audio problem, I consider it an essential home office tool. Ever since Oprah started using the program on her television show to communicate with her audience all over the world, I’ve been reading and hearing more about its use.

If you haven’t felt the urge to download Skype to your PC or mobile phone device, here is a brief summary of how I use Skype.

Skype Chat

This past week I received an order for translation from an agency whose Project Manager was traveling to another country and would be working from a different time zone for the duration of the project. The PM is a pretty avid Skype chat user so I kept my computer status set to “connected” (conectado) for the five days from contracting through project delivery. I also set my status to connected on my mobile telephone so that I could still have real-time  communication during the time that I was teaching, while driving and during other non-PC face time. So, when the unexpected problems of this project arose, I was able to respond within seconds to all inquiries.

Skype Phone

I use my cell phone for business purposes and though my service package has a large number of included minutes, I prefer to conserve minutes whenever possible. Skype allows me to make national calls to non-Skype phones for a low annual rate.  As my business grows I will be able to communicate directly with customers in different countries, at no cost if they are also Skype users. I could also purchase one of the international pay plans. Currently, that would not be cost effective for me since I do not have a cluster of clients in any one country.

What impresses you most about Skype?  Don’t know Skype? Here’s a good page to view: www.skype.com/go/voip

Let’s share ideas!

Internet Browsers – Why I like Firefox

At-home career professionals spend much of their time on the Internet. Whether for logging into secure systems, checking email or performing research, we have to be able to rely on our Internet browsers.

Right now, I am becoming disenchanted with Internet Explorer (IE). Until last week, I used IE7 for several years. Then suddenly it just kept shutting down on me—or rather, getting stuck in the land of “not responding.” I’m pretty sure it had something to do with Microsoft updates to my system. Well, I finally gave in and upgraded to IE8…and I’m not seeing any improvements, or any distinctions in the two versions for that matter.  For me, IE8 has too many lags and delays, the primary delay occurring when I upload documents from my computer.

Whether I am attaching a file to email or uploading to my website, the execution time can be counted in minutes and not seconds! I’m not a computer expert by any means so I’m not sure what could be causing it. And, though I am a diehard Microsoft fan, I am close to giving up completely on IE. In fact, for the past few days, I have opted to keep IE closed and use Mozilla Firefox.

With all that stated, I realize that I still have to use IE to access a few client proprietary web-based programs. It hasn’t been that long ago that I could only open webmail from my previous university in IE. So, though I like Firefox, it’s not an all-purpose solution.

On that note, I am happy to report that I have not had any problems with consistent lags or delays with Firefox on my PC. By the way, I just upgraded to the latest versions of Firefox on both my PC and Mac. When I started using the Mac version, the only slightly annoying aspect was that I had to select an application a dialog box when I opened a pdf document in the browser. After doing that twice, I opened the application preferences and set the default applications I wanted to use. No more annoyance! There are often delays with Firefox on the Mac, but no more than with the other browsers.

There are other options besides IE and Firefox. My husband (who gave up on IE in 2008) likes the Opera browser on his PC. He says that the pages load faster and videos play “like cable tv.” Before trying Opera, he had used Safari and liked that pretty well… until he learned about Opera.

My opinion of Safari is limited to my use of the browser on my Mac. Delays occur pretty often and that “rainbow pie of doom” appears on the screen. However, the program usually starts working within a minute. I use the Opera browser on my phone and it definitely works better than the mobile version of IE. I have downloaded Opera to my PC. I am not using it because for now, Firefox is working quite well.

Finally, I realize that Google Chrome has been out there but since I haven’t tried it, I cannot offer an opinion.

Which browser do you prefer to use on your Mac or PC? Why? Let’s share ideas!