Month: November 2018

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ADVENTURES IN TEACHING: Getting Hooked as a Live, Online Trainer

by Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP

As I write this, I am sitting at home looking out at a storm that has paralyzed commerce up and down the East Coast. I’m making no money. That is because an in-person class I had scheduled for today had to be cancelled. It was postponed until next year. Had I been scheduled for an online course, I would be working, and getting paid, today.
 
I’ve been in the training industry for more than 20 years, and at this point I am making most of my income by teaching online. When I have to go onsite to teach, I feel very put-upon: “You mean I have to get up before dawn? I have to get dressed in a suit? Drive in the hurricane or in the snow? On the BELTWAY???” 
 
When I reflect upon it, I realize that these are strange words coming from an erstwhile hardened road warrior. I’ve taught all over this town (I’m in the Washington, DC, area) and all over this country (I’ve been to 47 of the 50 states!). But now I most often teach from the comfort of my home office. 
 
No, I do NOT teach in my pajamas. C’mon! I know you were thinking that! Usually jeans and a nice shirt, if you must know. The nice shirt is just in case the webcam comes on by accident. (One must at least be minimally presentable, after all.)
 
So how did I first discover teaching online? To find the beginning of my online story, we have to go back almost to the turn of the century. No, not THAT century! The most recent turn of the century. Here is the story of how I became one of the early adopters of online teaching.
 
I was sitting in a manager’s office, because it was one of the few spaces offering some quiet in the busy classroom building. Participants in other classes were chatting in the hallway on their way to their morning break. I tested my headset to see whether that background noise was coming through.
 
“Can you hear the people talking in the hall?” I asked my online students.
 
“No, I don’t hear anything,” came the response.
 
“No” “No”—a string of no’s scrolled quickly in the chat window.
 
I was just beginning my first online class ever. It was the fall of 2001. 
 
Now before you think you can guess what happened next, let me tell you that the horrendous events of 911 had already taken place. And plane travel in the United States was a very fraught topic right about then. I had already had a teaching gig in California cancel. And the flow of students who came in from all over the country to our onsite training center had all but dried up.
 

 Can you hear me now?

So when the manager of a company where I was routinely teaching face-to-face classes asked me to look into this new concept of teaching online, I grabbed the chance. 
I did some research. We mailed the usual classroom printed handouts to the scheduled attendees. And now I was in my first online classroom…
 
…when the fire alarm went off.
 
“I can hear that!” said one of my online students.
 
“Oh my gosh! I am going to have to evacuate the building,” I said. To think of not obeying the fire alarm was not possible—right about then, we were all taking our fire drills very seriously. Plus, the alarm was so loud it was nearly physically impossible to stay in the building.
 
So I told my students that if I wasn’t back in 20 to 30 minutes, they should hang up their phones and log out, and we would reschedule the class. I put the audio on mute, I took off my headphones, and I exited the building.
 
It did turn out to be just a drill, and when I got back inside, all of my students were still there! They had talked among themselves, they had made friends and become acquainted, and they had kept their headsets on and stayed logged in until I returned. The rest of the class went off without a hitch. (I have absolutely no recollection of what the class was about.)
 
But that first online class set the new direction for my career. Air travel returned, and that training company went back to business as usual in classroom training. But I was hooked… online!
 
 
Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP, is a veteran eLearning developer, trainer, and author. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer and Certified Online Training Professional. She teaches both classroom and online courses, and has authored courseware, published training books, and developed content for countless eLearning projects. She is also a publishing professional with more than 30 years of experience in writing, editing, print publishing, and eLearning.
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ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Control the Startup Screen for a Published Project

by Kevin Siegel, COTP, CTT
Not all that long ago controlling what learners see first in Adobe Captivate published eLearning content was as simple as creating a visually-appealing first slide in the project. However, if you’ve created content with either Adobe Captivate 2017 or 2019 things aren’t quite as simple. Perhaps you’ve noticed that a mysterious screen now appears when your lesson opens within most web browsers.
 
The default startup screen is a bit plain-looking (it's nothing more than a gray background and a play button).
 
 
I bet you’re wondering why this screen exists, where it came from, and if there’s anything you can do to control it. The screen (known as an Auto Play screen) is necessary thanks to modern browser security protocols that prevent multimedia (such as eLearning content) from automatically playing for a learner without the learner taking the extra step of clicking a Play button.
 
Unfortunately, the Auto Play screen isn't among your Filmstrip slides so there does not appear to be a way to modify or brand it. However, while you cannot stop a startup screen from appearing, but you can control how the screen looks. Instead of the plain gray screen shown above, I want my learners to see the image below (I created the image with an image-editing program and saved it as a PNG.)
 
 
To use the image as the startup screen, open the project’s Preferences dialog box via Edit > Preferences (PC) or Adobe Captivate > Preferences (Mac). 
 
From the Category list at the left, select Start and End. If necessary, remove the check mark from Auto Play. (In older versions of Captivate, you could control the initial screen seen by learners by selecting or deselecting Auto Play. In recent versions of Captivate (2017 and 2019), Auto Play cannot be disabled, even if you deselect Auto Play. Nevertheless, to use your own image as the startup screen, you must deselect the Auto Play check box before you can browse for an image of your own. I know, I know, deselect to select? it's a bit wacky but it's true.)
 
 
Click the Browse button and a background image. (In the example below, the name of the background I’d like to use is called aquo.png.)
 
 
When I previewed the project, the imported image (which was the same width and height of my project) is used as the startup screen.
 
 
***
 
Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the U.S. Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.
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TEACHING LIVE, ONLINE CLASSES: What You Need to Know About Your Online Platform: Part 2

by Jennie Ruby, COTP, CTT

Today I was teaching an online class on GoToTraining. I use this online training platform about three to five days a week. But today, it threw me for a loop. 
 
Just two days ago, I taught a class on this platform and all was well.
 
Today, I logged in one Instructor computer to serve as my main platform. Then I logged in two additional computers: one as my Slide Display computer and the other as my Software Display computer. I was going to be going back and forth between showing slides and demonstrating software. 
 
Here’s where the loop-throwing part happened. As students are logging in, I am finishing my Instructor setup routine. I need to give the two supplemental computers “Organizer” status, so that I can have full instructor features on them. And I can’t do it.
 
I right-click, as I have done for literally years, and it’s not on the menu. WHA???
 
I hate stress when I’m setting up for a class. After all, I spent all evening last night tweaking my slides. I spent all morning making sure the sample files were correct and ready to go. And now, with students arriving, a basic function I’ve routinely done for years has vanished.
 
Between Monday and Wednesday, the GoToTraining folks had launched a new default behavior: Instead of downloading the App to view the class, computers other than the main instructor computer automatically log in with a view-only Web interface. They can’t screen share. And they can’t be made Organizers.
 
Quickly enough, I found the command for “Give me the full-service App!” and I solved the problem. I even had the satisfaction of answering their survey: “How do you like the new automatic Web login? Why are you changing to App view?” Don’t worry, I was quite restrained in my commentary. 
 
Because I knew that on some level it was my own fault. 
 
It is up to the online instructor to know everything about how the online training platform functions. No doubt I received an email or a newsletter from the GTT folks heralding the new procedure, which I should have read. At least I had done one thing right: I was logging my computers in an hour ahead of class time. Although it was true that one or two eager students were also logging in nearly an hour early, I had plenty of time to solve the problem. And even time to answer the survey!
 
Here are some things that you need to know about your online training platform, as the instructor: First, everything from my previous article on student functionality. Then, you need to know how to do the following:
 
Basics:
  • Log in as the Instructor/Organizer/Administrator
  • Log in backup computers and promote them to Presenters, or Organizers, or Administrators—different platforms have different roles available
In-Class Functions:
  • Share your screen
  • Share just a view of an app
  • Share a Whiteboard (WebEx)
  • Share any window (Adobe Connect)
  • Create Breakout Rooms
Communicate:
  • Chat
  • Audio
  • Private Messaging
Other special functions
  • Hide your screen icons and programs
  • Record the session
  • Leave the session without closing it
  • End the session
Some online training programs are harder to master than others. If you are at all shaky on any of the instructor/organizer/administrator skills, then you might need to work with a “producer.” It’s the producer’s job to operate the online training platform, help you achieve the technical setup you want, and help the students with whatever issues may come up for them. Having a producer frees you to focus on communicating and teaching, without the distraction and stress of platform issues like the one I experienced today.
 
Do you have advice to share? Stressed out moments over problems that you solved? Please share your stories below as comments.
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Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP, is a veteran eLearning developer, trainer, and author. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer and Certified Online Training Professional. She teaches both classroom and online courses, and has authored courseware, published training books, and developed content for countless eLearning projects. She is also a publishing professional with more than 30 years of experience in writing, editing, print publishing, and eLearning.