Adobe Captivate 7 - Now or Later?

By Jonathan Shoaf

I've always been a software junkie. I'm happy to spend some money on a software product when I know it will save me hours of effort over the course of the next year. So when new software comes out, I'm like a kid at Christmas opening up the gift to see if I got what I wanted.

These days, Adobe is the software vendor I'm using the most. I use the Adobe Master Suite and Adobe Captivate for many of my projects. So when Adobe Captivate 7 was released, I was eager to unwrap the gift. While I still need to use it for a few projects to give it a full review, I'd like to share some of my initial thoughts. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of the new features...just enough to answer the question:

Do I upgrade now or later?

The new release is the same Adobe Captivate you already know. If you are familiar with Captivate 5 and 6, it will be an easy transition to Captivate 7. There are new features and improved functionality, but don't expect an overhaul on the user interface.

Adobe is continuing to strongly support Microsoft PowerPoint. Many of the instructional designers I work with love this feature. It allows them to use a tool they are familiar with to lay out content and simply import it into Captivate. Once in Captivate, they can provide the additional functionality they need or pass it to a developer for advanced interactivity.

I'm careful about adding pre-built interactions to my projects. That said, Adobe has added some new interactions to its library. While the YouTube video streaming is not really an option for me (and my company), the new learning notes, and in-course web browsing could be useful. There is also some new features for creating drag and drop interactions.

New with version 7 is support for Tin Can. While I'm excited about this, I imagine it will be a long while before I have an LMS that will support this. If I did, this would be a good reason to upgrade.

The Adobe Captivate app packager is another reason I would consider upgrading...except that I mostly support Windows 7 computers using IE8 or IE9. (blah, I know!) That said, many folks will appreciate this if they need to support a variety of mobile platforms.

There is a new shared advanced actions feature that I'm looking forward to fully evaluating. I use advanced actions a lot. In fact, I keep wishing Adobe would update the user interface to advanced actions. In this release they've added the ability to reuse advanced actions more easily through templates.

There are some other new features that may be useful such as additional question types for HTML5, support of GIFT format for question banks, enhanced accessibility features, improved audio recording and editing, an equation editor, and a Twitter widget.

I've peeked under the wrapping paper...and, I'm glad to see something I know and love improved. So...do I upgrade now or later?

I don't have the urge to upgrade to it this very moment. There are no major time savers for me in this release. However, this may not be true for you. For example, there are certainly time saving features for supporting mobile platforms and HTML5 users.

Are you an Adobe Captivate user? Will you upgrade to Captivate 7 now or later?

How to Let Learners Make Mistakes in eLearning

By Shelley A. Gable

A few years ago, I was a co-researcher on a study that investigated the factors that influence informal workplace learning. The literature on the subject frequently references learning from mistakes as a typical form of informal learning.

So how can we leverage this natural way of learning in eLearning lessons?

Nudge learners to assess their responses. I recently saw this in an eLearning lesson a colleague created. The lesson prompted learners to answer a scenario-based question. After submitting the answer, an initial round of feedback suggested a couple of factors learners should have considered when responding and asked them to assess whether their responses were on the right track. Learners then had an opportunity to modify their responses or continue. This seemed like a clever way to prompt learners to reflect on their learning and potentially recognize mistakes themselves.

Show the consequences of decisions. Suppose an eLearning lesson teaches sales skills, and a scenario-based question challenges learners to present a product’s benefits to a customer. Instead of simply telling learners whether they presented the benefits correctly or incorrectly, follow their response with how the customer replies (perhaps with a customer who expresses interest, or a reluctant no, or a stern no, for example). Then, you might ask learners to assess why the customer reacted the way he did, and/or challenge learners to use a better response to attempt to recover the situation (which is similar to what someone might think through in this type of situation in real life).

Activate incorrect paths in system simulations. I’ve encountered two main types of system simulations. One type is immersive, allowing learners to click around and explore in a simulated re-creation of a software application (or a portion of it). Another type consists of a linear path through a specific series of steps.

When creating the latter, consider easing up on the linear aspect of it. Instead, you might activate a limited number of incorrect paths that branch from the intended path. To control the cost and time required to create a branching simulation, you can opt to only allow learners to stray a few steps away from the correct path. If a learner doesn’t self-correct before reaching the end of what you opt to allow, you might display feedback that helps learners recognize what they’ve done incorrectly and/or identify the misunderstanding that may have led them astray.

With an approach like this, learners benefit from learning from their mistakes through branching, and you can still control the cost and time required to build the simulation by limiting the extent of the branching allowed.

Do you give learners opportunities to make mistakes?

If so, how did you identify what types of mistakes to allow? And how did you design those opportunities into the training? Please share!

Engage Learners Emotionally in eLearning Experiences

By Shelley A. Gable

What was the last book you couldn’t put down? The last movie you couldn’t stop talking about? The last song you found yourself playing repeatedly?

While you may feel drawn to each of these for different reasons, chances are, you have emotional connections to them all. Perhaps you found one of them profoundly relatable. Maybe one was uplifting. Maybe another surged your adrenaline. Regardless of the nature of that connection, you likely felt engaged and the experience with it was memorable.

How can we create these emotionally engaging experiences in eLearning?

Inspiring engagement doesn’t require an investment in high-end video production. Rather, a simple yet compelling story can help emotionally engage learners with the content, creating a motivational and memorable learning experience. These stories can also create a challenge that permeates an entire course or lesson. Consider some of the suggestions below.

Create a story with good guys and bad guys.

I recently reviewed training a colleague created on a security-related topic. The training opened with a short story about a thief. It conveyed what the thief intended to steal, how, and the likely consequences for the victims. The learner was then challenged to use the skills learned in training to protect the victims by preventing the theft from occurring.

The rest of the training built on the opening story by applauding learners when their correct choices improved security and protected the would-be victims. Similarly, feedback for incorrect choices illustrated how the suboptimal action helped the thief by making the potential victims vulnerable.

This good guy versus bad guy type of story could apply to a variety of skill and knowledge topics. And, the “bad guy” doesn’t always have to be another person. The “bad guy” could be more conceptual, such as difficult environmental conditions, confusing processes, or day-to-day inconveniences.

Teach exemplar behaviors through employee recognition.

Imagine starting a lesson with an actual story of a customer service representative – let’s call her Janie – who received a rave review from a customer who provided feedback on a particular interaction. The lesson might start with the customer’s kind words and how Janie felt about receiving the recognition. The lesson could then challenge learners to earn the high praise Janie received by following her stellar example. The rest of the lesson might provide performance guidance and feedback in Janie’s voice, offering insight into how experienced, high-performing peers approach – and even think about – the tasks taught in the lesson.

Provide testimonials that boost the content’s credibility.

A few years ago, I briefly contributed to a project that involved redesigning instructor-led training on coaching skills for self-paced, eLearning delivery. Coaching, like many soft skills, is one of those topics that have a lot of models and “how to” books in the marketplace. Many of the approaches out there seem like common sense. Thus, I can understand why experienced supervisors may not feel eager to embrace the behaviors taught in training, especially if the organization hasn’t communicated a compelling reason for them to do so.

In this project, we created a series of eLearning lessons, with a short lesson (i.e., 30 minutes or less) dedicated to each major coaching skill in the coaching model. At the beginning of each lesson, we included a short video testimonial of someone describing their success with that lesson’s skill. We asked the storytellers to describe a specific situation where they used the new skill successfully and to predict how the situation may have ended differently if they hadn’t applied the new skill. The intent was to ensure that the testimonials felt realistic and actionable, in hopes of building credibility and interest for the content that followed.

How do you engage learners emotionally in eLearning experiences?

The examples above are just a few approaches I’ve encountered for engaging learners emotionally in eLearning experiences. What approaches have you designed?

   

Do you know your E-learning Buckets?

By Jonathan Shoaf

I've discovered recently I don't like the term e-learning. This is because I recently had to go through the process of understanding what salary you pay someone who is an e-learning developer. It turns out that it varies dramatically depending on who you ask. This is because everyone has a different idea of what e-learning is and what it takes to develop it.

So if you tell me you are an e-learning expert, it means nothing to me. You could be a beginning Captivate user creating a self-paced page turner, you could be a Flash developer melding ActionScript and Javascript to communicate with an LMS, or you could be an instructor maxing out whiteboards and breakout rooms in Adobe Connect to synchronously engage learners. The term e-learning covers a wide swath of teaching and learning using digital media.

E-learning needs to be categorized in different buckets depending on what the needs of the learner are. When I evaluate learning needs in my organization, here are some of the e-learning buckets I think about.

Self-Paced Learning
Self-paced learning content is typically consumed by learners at their own pace and time. It is a great way to get learning out to a large audience and can save time and money over traditional face-to-face learning. It is often the bane of the learning community because everyone has experienced a bad disengaging page turner that puts them to sleep. But when done right it can be a very good option for the learner.

Online Classroom
An online classroom offers many of the same benefits as face-to-face learning but it can be done remotely for a geographically dispersed group. In my experience this is one of the cheapest and quickest e-learning options.

Performance Support Systems
Electronic performance support systems provide just-in-time knowledge to learners who either don't have the time for other learning options. Also known as an EPSS, this type of system is great to house knowledge that is only used in rare cases.

Simulations
Simulations are a great way to introduce learners to a real work environment where they can learn and experiment without fear of adverse consequences. Simulations can also be used as an EPSS when a learner needs to know something about the system but doesn't have access to a real system to test.

Knowledge Management Systems
Knowledge management is a collection of information for employees to learn from. In the past I've used systems like wikis, Lotus Notes, and SharePoint to serve as knowledge management systems. These systems contain documents or other multimedia that learners can access any time as needed.

Social and Collaborative Learning
Social learning environments are great ways for employees or experts to collaborate with each other and share experiences. Social environments I used a lot include Linked In and Twitter. I have found that organizations have been very slow to adopt these environment internally. I think this is an opportunity for the future.

Multimedia
Multimedia is a critical area for e-learning. It spans over every other bucket. Videos, animations, graphics, and audio can convey knowledge in ways that learners can grasp. In fact, videos can almost stand on their own as an e-learning option for a lot of projects.

What would you add to the e-learning bucket list?

QR Codes – Short-Lived Fad or Long Term Solution?

By Dean Hawkinson

It seems like only yesterday that we began to see websites being posted for the first time on advertisements as the internet became more and more popular among advertisers and consumers. It got to the point that you were hard pressed to find advertising without a website associated with it.

Jump several years into the future to today where we now carry the mobile internet in our pockets with our smartphones and tablets, and are never without the internet at our fingertips. Now, I sit down to enjoy my large coke at my favorite fast food establishment and low and behold, there is this strange looking image on my cup that allows me to pull out my smartphone, use the AT&T Code Scanner app (or other scanner app) to “grab” that code and go directly to a website where I can enter a code to win a free order of fries or simply browse their web page. This technology is known as a QR (Quick Response) code.

Go ahead and try it out for yourself! Below is a QR code that you can scan to jump directly to the Integrated Learnings website. You will need to download an app that can read QR codes – there are several free apps available for all the major cell phone operating systems (iOS, Android and Windows). The AT&T Code Scanner is available free of charge for all three.

QR Codes and Learning

So, what do these QR codes have to do with learning? There are numerous ways that Instructional Designers and Trainers can take advantage of QR codes to enhance learning. It is as simple as creating the QR code (more on that in a bit) and downloading it as an image to be added to documents.

Let’s take a look at a few ways QR codes can enhance learning:

• Instructor-led Training – Picture a classroom without paper – not too much of a stretch in today’s learning environment – where your participants are using tablets for their interactive participant guides. QR codes can be imbedded into your PowerPoint presentation for instructor-led training and projected via the overhead projector. Using the tablet’s camera and downloadable scanner app, participants can obtain those participant guides and any other resources/job aids stored on a shared site or to be directed to a particular website to support the concepts being learned.
  
• Virtual Training – Same principles as Instructor Led training, but you will present the QR code via your Microsoft Live Meeting, Adobe Connect or other virtual classroom. It truly adds an element of interactivity to your virtual training.
  
• eLearning – In a web-based course, QR codes can be presented on your pages for easy scanning to access websites via a smartphone or tablet, or to obtain documents stored on a server. You can obviously link directly to websites with a link for the computer, but the QR code would be available for purposes when the document or site needs to be accessed via a mobile device.
  
• mLearning – QR codes would not be as widely used in an mLearning course as your learner would already be using a mobile device to access the training, so it would just be a matter of placing links in your material to go directly to the website or document. However, you would be able to use a QR code on the computer or printed material for that mobile device to scan and access the mLearning course itself.

Creating a QR Code

There are many different websites that allow you to build QR codes, and most of them are free. One such site is Kaywa.com. This site will allow you to create QR codes by simply entering the website address into a field and then downloading the code as an image file. You will need to establish a free account to use the site. However, performing an internet search for QR code generator will find many different websites that allow you to do the same thing.

Once you download the image, it is simply a matter of adding the image to your documents for scanning.

QR Codes are Here to Stay (at least for now)

It seems to me that with the simplicity of creating and using QR code technology in learning that this technology is here to stay for the long-term. As we begin to move more into the area of paperless training and using technologies such as tablets and smartphones for use in partnership with training, QR codes will be a very beneficial solution to use.

Have you had experiences with using QR codes in your training design & development? Feel free to share your experiences.