IconLogic

November 30, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Quiz Reporting and Advanced Interaction

by Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP

Here's an interesting scenario: You create a Captivate project that contains 12 slides: 10 question slides, each worth 10 points (that's 100 points total), and two non-question slides that contain some text, images, and simple image buttons used for navigation.

Soon after you roll out your course, learners report a big problem with the way the quiz is scoring. Several people answer every quiz question correctly but instead of receiving the expected perfect score of 100, they get a 96. Say what?

How about this one? You have a 5-question quiz in the project. As with the first example, the project also has a couple of non-quiz slides containing simple "go to the next slide" buttons… maybe even some click boxes. During the testing phase, the progress indicator is off… learners are told that they are on question 1 of 6 when there are only 5 questions

Both problems mentioned above are more common than you might think. The issues aren't with the question slides and they're not a problem with your learners. The problem is typically found with the interactive objects on the non-question slides.

If you were to select a click box or button and observe the Reporting area on the Properties Inspector, you'd see that any interactive object (click boxes, buttons, text entry boxes, etc.) can report interactivity. In essence, any interactive object can be treated like it's a question in a quiz.

In the example below, I've selected a regular button and, on the Properties Inspector, Actions tab, I've told Captivate to treat the button like a quiz question by simply selecting "Include in Quiz." I've also assigned a point value (in this instance, 100 points) and told Captivate to not only count the points as part of the quiz (Add to Total), but to Report Answers to my Learning Management System (Report Answers).

Adobe Captivate: Reporting area on the Properties Inspector.

The Include in Quiz, Add to Total, and Report Answers options are awesome if you want to create non-traditional quiz questions. However, the options can also cause the troubles I mentioned at the beginning of this article. When I'm working with interactive objects, I am always on my guard to ensure that none of the Reporting options are enabled (unless doing so is intentional). Between the three options, I find the Add to Total and Report Answers options to be the root cause of the miss-scoring issues.

Disabling the Reporting options is a simple matter of clearing a few check boxes. But what if you have a large project (perhaps 100 slides or more)? While some of the slides are question slides that you might want to score… and perhaps there are buttons or click boxes that you also want to include in the quiz… the majority of the slide objects aren't supposed to report a score. It's going to be a real pain to open each of the slides, show the Properties of each object and ensure the Reporting options are disabled. What's a developer to do? Read on…

Choose Project > Advanced Interaction to open the Advanced Interaction window. In the image below, you can see that I have objects in my project that are reporting scores (12 points in fact). I wouldn't have known that if not for the Advanced Interaction window. And if I was expecting to have objects report a total value of 100 points, I can see now that I've got a problem.

Advanced Interaction screen showing object scoring

Perhaps I don't want anything to score at all. All that I would need to do is select the objects in the Advanced Interaction window and then, on the Properties Inspector, deselect Add to Total.

Over the years I have found the Advanced Interaction window to be a huge time- and frustration-saver. If you've found a particular area in Captivate that saves you time, please feel free to share.

Looking for instructor-led Adobe Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

November 18, 2016

Training: Give Me a Break!

by Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP

I've written several articles about adult learners and attention spans. For instance, there was the article titled "How Long is Too Long?" where you learned that students can keep tuned in to a lecture for no more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time. During that same article I compared the attention spans in humans to the attention spans of the common goldfish (7 seconds for the goldfish; 15 seconds for a human). Then there was my follow-up piece earlier this year (Attention! Attention!) where I provided updated research from Microsoft that suggests the goldfish was short-changed and may actually have an attention span of 9 seconds while the attention span for humans may have gotten worse (down to 8 or 9 seconds).

Each of my attention span articles focused on attention spans of adults and eLearning (asynchronous training where there is no live interaction between a trainer and the learner). In those articles, I recommend that no individual eLearning lesson (or module) play for longer than approximately 5 minutes. (Anything longer than 5 minutes and you're inviting your learner to tune out and drift off to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or some other site.

What about learner attention spans in live, instructor-led classes (synchronous training)? While 5 minutes is an ideal playtime for eLearning (mainly because there isn't any human interaction), with live training (be it an online class or onsite), my experience has shown that you can keep a learner's attention far longer. In fact, 75-90 minutes is reasonable assuming you are engaging your learner and not simply lecturing. Nevertheless, even if your teaching style and course content are the best of the best, there is a limit to how long you can go before even an engaged student will cease to absorb your teachings. With that in mind, here is a typical schedule that IconLogic follows for all of its full-day classes (each of our full-day classes start at 10 a.m. Eastern):

10 a.m.: Class Start
11:30 a.m.: Break (15 minutes)
11:45 a.m.: Class resumes
1:00 p.m. Lunch (60 minutes)
2:00 p.m.: Class resumes
3:30 p.m.: Break (15 minutes)
5:00 p.m.: Class ends for the day

The schedule above is based on a 90-minute rotation of actual class time versus breaks (notwithstanding the 60 minutes for lunch). If your schedule is based on a 75-minute rotation, your first break would be at 11:15 a.m. and so on. And while we do end our classes promptly at 5:00 p.m. each day, we usually begin to wind things down at approximately 4:45 each day to leave time for learner questions. I've found that the 15 minutes gives everyone a chance to breath and decompress (our classes are typically jammed full of great content and hands-on activities so the wind-down period is helpful).

What's your take on the training to break ratio for live training? Do you think 90 minutes is best? Is 75 minutes better? Or perhaps you've got some other ratios in mind that you'd like to share? Feel free to comment below.

If you've been tasked with teaching live, online classes and it's something you're just not comfortable with, I'd suggest checking out the live, online certification course offered by the International Council for Certified Online Training Professionals. They've got a class coming up in December and I'm part of a team of certified trainers who will teach the 2-day session. You'll learn everything you need to know to successfully lead a live online class from the hardware you'll need, the software, techniques for engaging the learner, how to prepare your materials, and even how to create compelling onscreen presentations. Come join me, Jennie Ruby, and AJ Walther for an awesome certification event!

November 17, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Breakpoints and Viewports

by Lori Smith, Captivate Developer, COTP

Have you ever been frustrated when your beautifully designed layout in a Captivate responsive project looks nothing like what you created when viewing the content a mobile device (such as a tablet)? The problem isn't with your layout… it's likely due to the Breakpoint you set up in the first place.

Breakpoints

A Breakpoint is the layout area in a Captivate responsive project that essentially defines the size of a learner's mobile device. In the image below you can see the default Breakpoints available in Captivate 9. (Captivate initially has three Breakpoints and you can add two more.)

As you move from the Desktop Breakpoint down to the TabletBreakpoint and then Mobile, the layout for the slide automatically gets more and more narrow (from an initial default width of 1024 pixels all the way down to 414 pixels for a smart phone).

I wanted to create a reponsive layout in Captivate for my iPad. I assumed that the default Tablet Breakpoint size of 768 pixels would work just fine. However, after finishing the layout and then viewing it on my iPad, the layout looked nothing like I had intended. It turns out that the size of my iPad is very different than the default 768 pixels in Captivate. To make the layout in Captivate look correct when viewed on my iPad, I needed to set up a Breakpoint in Captivate that was the exact same size as my iPad. The problem was that I had no idea what that size was.

Viewports

A Viewport is the size of the viewing screen on a device, and there are as many Viewport sizes as there are devices. Fortunately, there are free resources available on the Web that will tell you the size of just about any device. One site that I use all of the time is viewportsizes. Besides offering an extensive list containing just about any device you can think of, the site offers a page that will tell you the size of the device you're currently using on the fly.

I opened Safari on my iPad and browsed to http://viewportsizes.com/mine. Once on the site, I was surprised to learn that the Viewport for my iPad was actually 1024×644 in Landscape mode, 768×900 in Portrait mode.

Now that I had the size of my iPad, it was simple enough to return to Captivate and modify the width and the height of my Breakpoint.

To adjust the width, all I need to do is drag the Size slider shown in the image below to 768. (If dragging the slider isn't precise enough for you, you can always type the value into the field to the right of the Slider.)

Specifying a specific height for a Breakpoint is also a snap via the Device Height field on the Properties Inspector.

From that point forward, I was able to rest easy with the knowledge that the layout I created in Captivate for my iPad would look the exactly the way I expected when opened with the same version/size iPad.

Looking for Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

November 11, 2016

eLearning: A Second Dose of Inspiration from Sally Cox

by Sally Cox

Last week I hopefully gave you a shot in the arm when it comes to creating your eLearning content. I am always on the lookout for fresh ideas to incorporate into my eLearning courses. Here are some of my favorite places to look for inspiration.

Adobe Behance

Behance is an online community of Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers. If you're looking for creative inspiration, there is a TON of it here. Use the search field to find people or keywords, and "follow" your favorites to see their latest works.

In the image below, I used the search feature in Behance to find infographics. I have found free templates here, along with a wide variety of creative projects.

Pinterest

Pinterest is an online community with an unlimited wealth of resources at your fingertips. And it's all free! Create an account and start "boards," where you store collections of links and images. I have many boards on Pinterest (@kreatable)–here's an example of my Infographics board.

Google

Good old reliable Google is another way to find inspiration–simply use Google or your favorite search engine to search for a topic. Use specific search terms to help weed out the unwanted content.

In the image below, I searched for "infographics" using Google. More specific phrase or keyword searches produce better, more refined results.

Twitter

Twitter is one of my favorite social media platforms (@kreatable) and searching on Twitter is super easy. In the image below, I've done a search on Twitter, looking for infographics.

Design books and websites

I recommend using design books and online resources. Websites like Smashing Magazine and Just Creative offer a wealth of creative inspiration. Find the ones that are tailored to your skill set and check them often for new and fresh ideas.

Here's a design book I love because it has lots of creative ideas. Connie Malamed's Visual Design Solutions is published by Wiley Press, and is available on Amazon.

Remember: Creative ruts are temporary. Create a list of things you can do to counter your lack of inspiration, and you'll be back on track in no time.

November 10, 2016

“TechSmith Camtasia 9: The Essentials” Workbook Nearly Finished

I'm excited to announce that my newest book, "TechSmith Camtasia 9: The Essentials" has gone to my beta team for testing and proofreading. I expect the book to be available for purchase in a few short weeks. (You'll be able to purchase the book direct from my website or resellers such as Amazon.com.) Camtasia version 9 is an awesome upgrade to Camtasia and I give it two hearty thumbs up!

During this step-by-step book you will learn how to:

Create projects
Share projects to Vimeo, YouTube, Screencast, and locally
Create both videos and SWF/HTML5 output
Record screen actions
Add images
Add videos
Work with the Library
Work with the Timeline
Add quizzes
Add Behaviors
Record, import, and edit audio
Add Zoom and Pan Effects
Add closed captions
Add TOCs
Work with PowerPoint

And much more!

November 10, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Fun and Games

by Kevin Siege, COTP, CTT+

One huge challenge eLearning developers face when creating course content is engaging the learner, even if the subject matter is a bit dry.

One technique we preach in our classes is creating PowerPoint slides that employ iconography over standard bullets and text. Of course, visuals can only get you so far which is why I love the ability to quickly add interactive objects, even games, via Captivate's Learning Interactions.

Remember the memory game from your youth? Believe it or not, a memory game comes with Captivate… and you can deploy it with zero programming skills. To begin, create a slide and then choose Interactions > Learning Interactions. Scroll down and select Memory Game.

Memory game

Click the Insert button to open the Configure interaction screen. From here, you can add your images.

Configure interaction

If you click Customize at the bottom of the screen, you'll find several areas of the interaction that you can easily control.

Customization

When you're finished, click the OK button and that's pretty much it. Preview the project and, believe it or not, the memory simply works… and it works great. (Did I mention there's not an ounce of programming skill necessary?)

Finished game

Looking for Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

November 1, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Submit All

by Kevin Siegel

When a learner takes a quiz created with Adobe Captivate, failure by the learner to click the Submit button on each and every question is a recurring problem. Many learners don't realize that a question is considered incorrect if it's skipped. And the answer is skipped if the Submit button isn't clicked. How can a learner miss clicking the Submit button? I've seen learners select a correct answer, and then click a slide's Next button to move to the next question. Only after seeing the Quiz Results slide will a learner understand that clicking the Submit button was mandatory. By clicking Next, the answer was never submitted for scoring and was counted as an incorrect answer. Ouch!

I've gotten plenty of emails from developers wishing there was a way to ensure that learners didn't forget to click the Submit button. Fortunately, there is a Quiz setting available in Captivate that will help.

Choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences. From the Settings group, select Submit All.

The Submit button on every question slide will be replaced with a Submit All button.

Of course, the same learner who didn't understand the importance of clicking the Submit button will likely have the same issue with the Submit All button. The wonderful thing about the Submit All button is what happens should a learner click a slide's Next button on the last question in the quiz, or the Submit All button on any slide.

Check out the alert dialog box shown below. Thanks to the Submit All option, there's simply no way a learner can avoid answering every question.

After clicking the OK button, the learner will be required to go back through the Quiz and answer any questions that had not been completed. Once the learner has answered every question, the Submit All Answers button can be clicked while the learner is on any slide. Once clicked, the learner will see the alert dialog box below.

In a future version of Captivate, I'd love to see more information about which questions haven't been answered by the learner (in the first Submit All dialog box). As it stands now, learners will need to go through every question slide looking for anything that hasn't been answered. Nevertheless, the Submit All option is a step in the right direction.

Looking for Captivate training? Check out these live, online classes.

October 31, 2016

eLearning: A Dose of Inspiration from Sally Cox

What do you do when, as an eLearning developer, you hit a mental roadblock and cannot get inspired, no matter what you try? We all have situations like this (some of us more than others), so I would like to offer some tips for helping you get out of that rut and recharge with some fresh, new ideas. Read on.

Step Away

Sometimes, just a change of scenery or break from the mental pattern you are in can make a world of difference. Go for a walk, do some light chores, take a drive.

During one evening when I was having inspiration troubles, I took a drive to Carson Valley near Reno, Nevada, and took the picture below. I've actually been able to use the picture in a few of my eLearning courses. Score!

Make a List

I am an ardent list maker. I make lists for grocery trips, packing for vacation–and I make a to-do list every single morning. Even smaller tasks go on the list so, when completed, I feel a sense of accomplishment. Just making a list and working through it–no matter how small the task–can be very motivating. I write my lists by hand, but you can use apps like Priorities and other list making apps to get the job done.

Brainstorm

These days, I create a lot of infographics for my courses. When I need a little extra push to get inspired, I brainstorm. Here are a few ideas I use to get my creativity pumping.

List descriptive words that come to mind. No right or wrong answers–just jot down whatever comes to mind. Some of the silliest ideas can be reworked into something usable.
Think of what visuals you associate with the concept, and make notes and/or sketches about them.
Use pencil/pen and paper to sketch your ideas, and try variations. Keep your sketches loose and not too detailed.
Focus on the story or message, and don't get sidetracked.
Use mind maps (a graphical way to represent ideas and concepts) to get ideas flowing. Start with a general phrase in the middle of the screen or paper. Then start connecting ideas.
Create an outline, similar to a mind map, but in outline form. No sketching here, just your random thoughts in a structured format.

Next time: Resources for Inspiration

October 24, 2016

Adobe Captivate: Learning Interactions with Self-Hiding Instructions

by Jennie Ruby

Scenario: Your SME wants to put a ton of text on a slide. "It's all important!" she insists.

"Okay," you say. "But let's give the learner some control over the experience. Let's use a Learning Interaction."

The Learning Interactions in Adobe Captivate are very useful for presenting a lot of text by topic or subheading. In this article, I'll show you how to address both the needs of the project and your SME's concerns. For this project, we'll choose the Tab interaction.

Go to the Interactions drop-down and choose Learning Interactions. Then choose the Tabs learning interaction. On the resulting dialog box, double-click Title, and type your title. (Don't worry if your first double-click does not enable editing. These placeholders are notoriously difficult to double-click. Just keep clicking until the word Title goes into editing mode. Then type your title.)

Enter all of your text by double-clicking a tab, giving it a tab name, and then double-clicking the Button Content placeholder for each tab to enter your text.

When all of your content is in, click the OK button to create your interaction. Now preview it. It should work great.

However, let's go back to our scenario:

The SME is now unhappy because when you first arrive at this slide, the Tab area is completely blank. The learning interaction does not display any of its tab contents until you click a tab.

"How does the viewer know to click a tab?" the SME asks.

"Good question," you reply. "We could give instructions in the voiceover narrative."

"I'd rather see printed instructions on the slide," your SME says.

Now we have this challenge: how to create instructions and something to fill the blank tab area when the viewer first arrives on this slide, but without covering up the tab's text when the interaction is in use.

Captivate offers "actions" that can show and hide objects on the slide. We can create a text caption that will give the viewers some instructions. But how are we going to hide the text caption so the viewers can see the Tab text? We'll create a button along with the caption that will hide the text caption and also hide itself!

Start by creating a text caption containing the instructions: "Click each tab to read its contents." Format the caption and place it in the middle of the blank space on the Tab interaction.

Then from the Interactions drop-down, choose Button. In the Properties inspector, Style subtab, caption the button with the word Start.

After positioning the text caption and the button nicely on the slide, Select both the text caption and the Start button (shift-click should do it), and from the Edit menu, choose Group.

Select just the button, and on the Properties inspector, Actions subtab, set On Success to Hide, and in the Hide drop-down list, choose the group. While you are there, also deselect the checkbox for Continue Playing the Project. That way, once the button is hidden, the project will not proceed to the next slide before the viewer can click a tab! (Note: this assumes the project has a play bar that the viewer can use to advance the slide after viewing the Tab interaction.)

So far, you have a Start button that will hide the instructions and hide itself. But how can we make sure that these will always be visible on the slide to start with? After all, the viewer might visit the slide, hide the caption and start button, leave the slide, and then return. The solution is to add an On Entry action for the slide.

Click the slide in the Filmstrip, open the Properties inspector, Actions tab, and assign the On Enter action Show, and choose your group.

Preview your project, and each time you enter the slide containing your Tab interaction, you see the instructions, click the Start button, and then use the Tab learning interaction to view the text.

Result: The SME is happy, you are a success, and the viewers know exactly what to do when they reach this slide.

***

Looking for Adobe Captivate training? Check out these live, online Captivate classes.

October 19, 2016

TechSmith Camtasia: Major Upgrade Released

by Kevin Siegel

It's been years in the making but TechSmith has finally updated Camtasia… and boy is this upgrade worth the wait.

First and foremost, Camtasia for Windows (version 9) and the Macintosh (version 3) are now very similar allowing you to share projects across platforms. And while the version numbers are different (I wish TechSmith had settled on a common version number or name), and there are features that still aren't available in both platforms, this is an awesome step in the right direction.

The interface has been overhauled. One common complaint from my students as I teach Camtasia is that the options such as Transitions, Audio Effects, etc. in version 8, while awesome, were often hard to find for new eLearning developers. (The options were sandwiched between panels in Camtasia 8 and often hidden from view as a developer switched from one set of options to another.)

Check out the new interface. Version 9 for Windows is shown below followed by version 3 for the Mac. I think you'll agree they're pretty similar.

And finding the options/tools you need is no longer a challenge because all of the options are neatly aligned at the left of the Camtasia window.

Beyond a new interface, Camtasia comes with an enhanced collection of Library assets that include a collection of high-quality, royalty-free backgrounds, music tracks, icons, and animations.

And if you used to dread publishing your Camtasia projects because the process was painfully slow, you can rejoice. Camtasia takes full advantage of 64-bit processing power that results in blazing-fast rendering times.

I'll be covering specific Camtasia features on both the Mac and Windows version in the coming weeks. If you'd like to learn more about Camtasia (or download the trial and try it on for size), visit the TechSmith website.

Looking for eLearning training? Check out these live, online classes.