Best of Both Worlds: Integrating Adobe Captivate and Articulate Presenter

Adobe Captivate and Articulate Studio have different skill sets and sometimes you need the best of both worlds.  While Captivate is great for software simulations, I think Articulate is better for soft skills projects and tying the whole thing together.  Because Captivate and Articulate have unique qualities you may come across the situation where you want the best of both worlds by using the two programs together.  For example, I'm currently working on a project where branching scenarios lead into software simulations.  I wanted to use Articulate presenter for the branching scenario but I also wanted to use Adobe Captivate for the software simulations.  This brought me to the challenge of embedding an Adobe Captivate software simulation in an Articulate Presenter project.  Through a little research and trial and error I found a way to smoothly embed an Adobe Captivate software simulation in an Articulate Presenter project.  This post includes a Screenr video and written instructions describing how to take advantage of the best of both worlds by integrating Adobe Captivate and Articulate Studio.  Please post a comment if you have any questions or ideas of how to improve upon what I started.

Video Overview:
The Screenr video below overviews how to embed Adobe Captivate Software simulations in an Articulate Presenter project as well as a cool way to transition from a branching scenario into the Captivate software simulation.  Check out my post "How to Create a Zoom and Pan Effect in PowerPoint" for more information on the "Zoom and Pan" transition effect.

(Click Here to View Video on Screenr)

Written Instructions:
Why reinvent the wheel? Dave Perso wrote up great instructions of how to embed Adobe Captivate in Articulate Presenter in his post at the link below.  You may have got the jist from my Screenr video above but if you would like more details or a written set of instructions then click on the link below to check out Dave's post.  I also included a link to my previous post which describes a method for transitioning from a scenario into a software simulation by creating a "Zoom and Pan" effect in PowerPoint.

• Daveperso's Articulate eLearning Blog: Presenter 09 and Captivate 4
• How to Create a "Zoom and Pan" Effect in PowerPoint

Using SCORM with Adobe Captivate and Moodle

If you are thinking about using Moodle and Adobe Captivate together one of the first things you need to take into consideration is the use of SCORM. Both Moodle and Adobe Captivate are SCORM 1.2 and 2004 compatible. What does this mean? It means that you can create an eLearning tutorial with Adobe Captivate that will communicate the users scores and other information to the gradebook in Moodle. If you were ever wondering how to track completion of flash based eLearning tutorials, SCORM is the answer. You could drive yourself crazy drilling down into the details of SCORM but the most important thing to know is how to make it work. This post answers one of my most frequently asked questions from blog readers by walking you through the steps of using a SCORM based Adobe Captivate tutorial in Moodle. I've included a video from Dave Mozealous (@dmozealous) at MoodleTuts screencasting the procedure. Check out the video to see the process in action or simply use the written instructions for an overview. Hope this information helps and please leave a comment if you have any suggestions for using Captivate with Moodle or if you have any questions.

(Click Here to view video instructions)

Using SCORM with Adobe Captivate and Moodle:

1. Turn on SCORM reporting in Adobe Captivate.
1. Go to "Quiz Preferences"
2. Select "Enable Reporting"
3. Select SCORM 1.2
4. Leave other options at default (optional)
2. Publish the Captivate tutorial with the "Zip Files" option checked.
3. Go to the Moodle site and add a "SCORM/AICC Activity."
4. Add a name and description for the activity
5. Click the "Choose or Upload File" button to add the SCORM package.
6. Click the "Upload a File" button and Browse to the Zipped SCORM package you published with Captivate.
7. Click the "Choose" option once the zip file has been uploaded.
8. Leave the other options as default. Once you get things working I would recommend playing around to see how the different options affect the activity. You'll need to find the correct combination of settings that will work for your situation.
9. Click "Save and Return to Course" and test the activity. You may need to login as a student to ensure that scores are tracked in Moodles grade book.
   

Resources:

• Moodle Docs Instructions for using SCORM Activities

Related Posts:

• SCORM and Bandwidth
  

5 Reasons Why I Decided to Buy Articulate Studio 09

I'm just finishing up my test drive of Articulate Studio 09 and I am sold on driving my own version off the lot. As I discussed in my post "Articulate, Captivate, Both, Or....?", I have been using Adobe Captivate but would like something that integrates with Power Point and speeds up the development process. Articulate has definitely proven that it provides what I was looking for and many other benefits that I was not aware of. Here are 5 reasons why I decided to pay the price for Articulate Studio 09.

1. Rapid Development - Yes, it still takes time and effort to design and develop a quality eLearning experience but Articulate has definitely sped up the development process for me. I went into this just hoping to eliminate the steps I was taking to convert my power point into a Captivate file but got more than I was expecting with Quizmaker and Engage. I was expecting these tools to speed up development but I was not expecting the quality results. Before diving into this I thought these tools were just for cookie cutter eLearning and not as flexible as you see in the Screenr videos here and here and here.
   
2. Community - I had been following Tom Kuhlmann's Rapid eLearning blog for quite a while and have learned a lot from him but I had no idea about all the great Screenr videos, blog posts, and forum posts from other Articulate gurus such as David Anderson (@eLearning), Dave Mozealous (@dmozealous), and Jeanette Brooks (@JeanetteBrooks) all of whom have already helped me troubleshoot an issue or sparked a creative idea for a project after only a month of using Articulate. The community's ability to show me the potential of Articulate products and quickly help me troubleshoot an issue is what truly sold me.
   
3. Bandwidth - The learners in my organization are what I like to call "Bandwidth Challenged." You may have read previous posts of mine describing the problems I have with learners computers freezing on SCORM based Captivate projects. This is no problem with Articulate. SCORM based projects are running like a dream even for my "Bandwidth Challenged" learners. I believe this may be due to Articulate producing a package of smaller files compared to Captivate publishing one big .swf file. However, I am using Captivate 3 and I have heard that this is not as much of a problem in Captivate 4.
   
4. PowerPoint Integration - I often find myself doing the majority of the work in power point then importing those slides into Captivate to make the final touches and publish. I felt like I was taking extra steps by jumping between the different programs and thought I might be able to save time and possibly get better results using a tool that integrates with Power Point. I was right about saving time and pleasantly surprised about the difference in results of the published files. I have noticed that power point slides with Articulate come out with a cleaner, crisper look and smaller file size compared to Captivate.
5. Flexibility - Compared to other tools that integrate with Power Point, Articulate is more flexible. There are many more options giving you control of the navigation and behavior of each slide and the overall template. I've only completed a couple of projects so I feel like I am just scratching the surface with all of the customization options available.
   

I am excited about the potential for future projects now that I am able to leverage the best of what both Articulate Studio and Adobe Captivate are best at. I'm sure not everyone will agree but from the perspective of a busy eLearning Developer in a smallish organization, Articulate will definitely improve the quality of many projects and reduce the time it takes to produce those results. Please help others lost in all the software options by posting your take on Articulate, Adobe Captivate, and other eLearning development tools.

Related Posts:

• Articulate, Captivate, Both...or?
  

Articulate, Captivate, Both, or....?

I've been using Adobe Captivate for a while now and I am very happy with it for technical training projects but I can't help but wonder if other tools like Articulate may be a great addition to my toolbox. Since I already have Captivate, I need to determine whether it would be worth the investment to purchase new software when I may be able to get along just as well with what I already have. I'm hoping you can help me make this decision by commenting with your thoughts on the skill sets of Articulate, Captivate, or a different eLearning authoring tool altogether.

In my humble opinion, Captivate is second to none when it comes to software simulations and technical training projects but I believe there is a little left to be desired when it comes to soft skills projects that don't require screencasting. I often find myself creating most of the content in Power Point, then importing those slides into Captivate to add interaction and publish as flash. Being that Articulate integrates so well with Power Point it makes me wonder if maybe I would be happier with it for certain projects. But then there's that price tag that comes along with Articulate that makes me think I should just stay with what is already working okay for me. So, what do you think, is Articulate worth the investment when I already have Captivate? Before I jump into the trial version of Articulate to test it out I'd like to hear your opinion on eLearning development tools. Here's a brief description of some of the requirements that will come into play in the decision making process.

Requirements:
This is definitely not an exhaustive list of requirements but my main concerns going into the research stages.

• Works well for low bandwidth users - You could say that my learners computers are bandwidth challenged. I have a difficult time using SCORM with Captivate because of the added bandwidth. Keeping bandwidth to a minimum is a huge concern for me.
• Moodle friendly - If you've read this blog before you know I am using Moodle so it is important that whatever tool I use is Moodle friendly.
• SCORM works well on Moodle - I've had my challenges using SCORM with Captivate and Moodle due to bandwidth issues. Hoping a different tool might be able to handle this better.
• Budget Friendly - I don't have much room in the budget so it needs to be something that's not going to leave too much of a dent in it. The price tag on Articulate is pushing it. Although I do have a student discount so I may be able to find a better deal then what is advertised on the web site.
• Branching Friendly - This year I will be working on a lot of scenario based branching eLearning tutorials. I'd like a tool that is designed well for laying out a branching tutorial and makes it easy to create menu screens with variables based on the users path.
  

Adobe Captivate: "Continue" or "Go to next Slide."

I have a confession to make. I was making a stupid mistake in Adobe Captivate 3 that was seriously affecting the performance of my eLearning tutorials. When I first started using Captivate I was under a tough deadline for my first project and did not have the time to take any classes or tutorials. I bought a book and dove right in. I was confident in my skills with Powerpoint and Captivate's not that much different, right? Wrong, Captivate has different options for advancing the tutorial with action buttons and thanks to the power of Twitter, I found out I was using the wrong option. Here's the story...

I was having a hard time figuring out how to reduce the bandwidth requirements for published flash files. My projects didn't have a lot of bells and whistles but when I used the "Bandwidth Analysis" option, I was finding that the KB/Sec were through the roof on every slide. In a few tweets about this with @JFDragon, he recommended to simply extend the length of my slides. The problem I had with that is that I didn't want to make the user sit around and wait for the timeline to finish out. @JFDragon pointed out that I don't need to make the user sit around if I have the slide advance using the "Go to next slide" option rather than "Continue." I was making the simple mistake of using the "Continue" option when I should have been using "Go to next slide."

The big difference is that the "Go to next slide" option advances to the next slide when clicked, no matter where the slide is at on the timeline. The "Continue" option will play out the rest of the timeline before advancing to the next slide. By using the "Go to next slide" option you can extend out the length of the slide but the user is still able to advance when they are ready. This allows more time for each slide to load in turn reducing the KB/Sec of each slide and the overall bandwidth requirements. Because I was using the "Continue" option, I had to make each slide only a few seconds long and pause at the end of each one so that the timeline would finish out before the user clicked on whatever they needed to click to continue. This means that each slide only had a few seconds to fully load which really ramped up the bandwidth requirements.

This small change has made my Adobe Captivate tutorials run much smoother and has dramatically reduced any kind of performance problems such as freezing. Now I am spending time going back and making this change to Captivate projects I have put together over the last 6 months. Hopefully this blog post will prevent another Captivate user from making the same mistake and having to waste time revising old projects. This problem was solved thanks to the power of Twitter! Follow me @joe_deegan so that we can learn from each other.

Related Posts:

• SCORM and Bandwidth
• SCORM and Bandwidth Part 2
• Adobe Captivate: The Dreaded Right Click
  

The dreaded Right Click

I am working on developing eLearning technical training courses for an ERP software application being implemented within a division of the company I work for using Adobe Captivate 3. If you are familiar with Adobe Captivate then you are familiar with "Assesment Simulations." I love assessment simulations because they require the learner to do the clicking rather than just viewing a screen recording of the process. This is great because they can actually practice using the software in a safe environment where they can't mess anything up and they will receive constructive feedback based on where they click. This is particularly great for my situation because in this software implementation, learners will be expected to be using the application full time the day the switch is flipped and the software is available to them. Captivate and the assessment simulations are a life saver for me because I can train them on the software without them actually having access to it.

Problem is that the software application has a lot of features that are accessed through right clicking and Captivate has no answer for the right click. I am on a deep dive for ideas of how to simulate the right click in a captivate simulation. I have heard that Captivate 4 is the answer for the right click in a post on Wendy Wickhams blog. Unfortunately Captivate 4 is not out yet and it's going to be a while before I have the budget to upgrade.

There's got to be some creative instructional designers out there who have come up with a way to cover right clicking in a Captivate assessment simulation but I haven't found them yet.
Please post a comment or send me an email if you have any ideas. Look for future posts on my solution to this issue

SCORM and Bandwidth Part 2

In my previous post SCORM and Bandwidth, I described an issue I am having with a Captivate eLearning tutorial freezing up on some of my users accessing it through Moodle. It turns out I was right that the problem has something to do with the zipped SCORM package. I came to this conclusion by posting a link to just the .swf file and it works great for the users who had issues. How come the .swf file works great but the zipped SCORM package freezes up? I also tried posting a link to the html file and that froze just like the zipped SCORM package. At this point I can move forward with the project using just the .swf file but I will not be able to track through SCORM and I won't be able to use the handy Captivate toolbar. I have "work arounds" for both of these issues but I wish that everything would work as intended.

I believe the problem could be that the SCORM package and the html file require more bandwidth and higher modem speeds. In the near future the users who are having problems will be upgraded to a 384K modem so I am hoping the higher modem speeds will solve the issues I am having with the zipped SCORM package but that is still not mindblowing speeds so we'll have to wait and see.

Any suggestions or input for solving this issue are greatly appreciated.

SCORM and Bandwidth

I am in the process of implementing Moodle and my first time using an eLearning tutorial developed with Captivate did not go well. I ran a little test with a small group of people who are accessing Moodle through a Citrix connection. The tutorial froze up on about %50 of the end users and worked great for the other half.

There are a variety of things that could have caused the Captivate tutorial freeze up and I am hoping I can find a solution. My first thought is that the organization is currently going through a network upgrade which has caused a variety of system issues. I am hoping that all of my problems are solved after the network upgrade is complete but I suspect that there will still be problems. Many of the users connect on a WinTerm through Citrix which does not encourage great performance : )

Another possible culprit could be how I have the SCORM settings set. The reason I believe SCORM tracking may be the culprit is because I have had nothing but success with flash based eLearning courses that do not use any kind of SCORM tracking. The only difference here is that I am using a zipped SCORM package as opposed to a standard .swf file.

I am going to start by trying some different SCORM settings and run a few more tests. I am currently recording all interactions so I am hoping by changing that setting I will get better performance. I am also waiting to hear back on the status of the network upgrade and hopefully I will get good news.

Related Posts:

• SCORM and Bandwidth Part 2

Captivate and Moodle play well with others

I finished up my first project developed with Captivate and decided to take the opportunity to dive into SCORM with Moodle. Until now, I have only experimented with moodle and have never had to worry about SCORM when publishing courses. We are now taking our eLearning programs to a larger scale and Moodle will sure save us a lot of headaches as opposed to using MS Sharepoint as we have been doing. So, I decided to take the leap and try and figure out what this whole SCORM thing was about.

At first I had a hard time finding specific instructions of how to make a SCORM class work in Moodle. Forgive my ignorance but I had no idea that you were supposed to upload the entire zipped package intact. I think this is beneath the regulars in the Moodle forums which is why I had a tough time finding anything on it.

Once I figured that out everything went surprisingly well. The scores from assesments within the Captivate eLearning module were recorded in the Moodle gradebook flawlessly. Now that I have this hurdle out of the way I am ready to dive into Moodle and make it my companies full time eLearning university. This comes in perfect timing for the eLearning courses I am working on for a management training program. I am just about ready to run a pilot test of the courses so I will also be able to use this opportunity for a pilot run of Moodle.

Hello Captivate!

My Adobe creative suite and Captivate arrived and I have already dove into a project in Captivate. While I was waiting for the software to arrive, I designed and storyboarded a soft skill scenario simulation for management training courses that I am working on. Now I am knee deep in developing it in Captivate and I am kicking myself for not pushing harder for this purchase a year ago. Now I would love to go back and re do several of the eLearning courses I developed using Power Point and a Flash converter. Unfortunately I have too many projects on my to do list to spend the time going back and re developing courses. Some day.

I have also been improving my skills in Photoshop with this project. I am using employees of the company as characters in the eLearning module which is requiring quite a bit of work extracting images from their background in Photoshop.

I've been stoked about work now that I have all of these cool tools to play with. I'm looking forward to learning more.