training – Page 10 – The Logical Blog

January 31, 2014

Localization: Training & Development in Canada

by Jen Weaver

While close in proximity, Canada–our neighbor to the north–is quite different from the U.S. Let's explore some common cultural facts about Canadians and their expectations when it comes to training and development.

Test Your Knowledge of Canadian Culture

English and French are the official languages of Canada. What is the third most common language?

German
Chinese
Russian

True or False? All of Canada is in the same time zone.
Canadian culture more closely resembles

American
British

What is a "Double Double"?

Quick Tips for Training & Development in Canada¹:

Facts are given precedence over feelings, and objective information is preferred over subjective.
Business focus is given to completing tasks rather than establishing relationships. Demonstrate immediate results by establishing short-term tasks, and be sure to highlight your progress along the way.
Individual recognition is a desired reward. Call attention to distinct successes to drive results.
French provinces have different cultural values than the rest of the country. French-speaking Canadians are prone to interrupting during conversations and are less punctual than English-speaking Canadians. When working with French Canadians, provide your materials in French as well as English. And be careful to remember that French for Canada is different than French for France.
In Quebec, all commercial endeavors must be in French, and French is the only legal language for conducting business.
With a wide variety of ethnicities present in Canada, business etiquette often reflects one's ethnic background and may differ from those of other Canadians. Keep this in mind and cater your interactions based on the individual you're working with.

Canadian Culture Answers:

(b) Chinese. There are also large populations of Punjabi and Spanish speakers.
False. Canada actually spans six different time zones.
(b) British. Canadian culture tends to be more reserved, and you may need to overcome American stereotypes of being overbearing or intrusive.
Nope, it's not a cheeseburger. A "Double Double" is a coffee with two creams and two sugars.

References:

¹Morrison, Terri, & Conaway, Wayne A. Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands, 2nd ed. (2006). Avon: Adams Media.

***

Developing international training and development materials? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

January 29, 2014

Camtasia Studio vs Adobe Presenter: Working with PowerPoint Presentations

by Kevin Siegel

If you have already created a presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint, it's very easy to re-purpose the presentation as eLearning content using either TechSmith Camtasia Studio or Adobe Presenter. Here is how the workflow compares in both tools.

TechSmith Camtasia Studio 8 and PowerPoint

To migrate PowerPoint presentations to Camtasia Studio projects, and then eLearning, you'll need to first install Camtasia Studio and, when prompted, install the Camtasia recording features for PowerPoint. Once installed, the Camtasia recording features are added to PowerPoint's Ribbon (on the Add-Ins tab).

To migrate a PowerPoint presentation into a new Camtasia Studio project, click the Record button (shown above). The PowerPoint presentation opens as a slide show and you click through and narrate the presentation just like you would for a live audience.

When you're finished working through the presentation, press the [escape] key on your keyboard. The recording process stops and a video of the entire presentation is created.

The video automatically opens in Camtasia Studio and is inserted on the Timeline. All you have to do at this point is use the excellent tools found in the Studio to enhance the video as you see fit. (Using Camtasia, you can add callouts, images, audio, Flash hotspots, animations, and even a quiz.)

Once you've finished enhancing the video in Camtasia, you need only choose Produce and Share so your eLearning lesson can be consumed by your learners. During the Produce and Share process, you can output SWFs, MP4 videos, and HTML5-compliant output (allowing the content to be usable on mobile devices such as the Apple iPad).

TechSmith also provides a nifty, free publishing portal known as Screencast.com. You can post your Camtasia output to Screencast.com for easy learner access.

While the Camtasia to PowerPoint workflow is simple, there is one drawback. During the Camtasia Recording process, it's as if a video camera was pointed at your display. If your timing is off as you click through the presentation, you'll likely need to stop the recording process and start again.

Once the video is added to a Camtasia project, you can perform some simple edits to the video. For instance, you can split the video into multiple segments, and you can crop segments. However, if there's a major problem with the video (perhaps you forgot to click something during the recording process), you'll pretty much need to remove the existing video from the Camtasia Timeline and re-record.

Adobe Presenter 9 and PowerPoint

When working with Adobe Presenter and PowerPoint, there really isn't anything to migrate. After installing Presenter on your computer, the Adobe Presenter tools are integrated with the PowerPoint Ribbon (on the Adobe Presenter tab). Below are the individual tool groups you'll find on the Adobe Presenter tab.

As with Camtasia, you'll use the Presenter tools to add audio, images, videos, and a quiz. Once you're finished, you'll use the Presentation group on the Adobe Presenter group to Publish the Presentation as either a SWF or PDF. (While you can also publish SWFs using Camtasia, you cannot produce a PDF.)

While it might seem like there are more tools on the Adobe Presenter tab when compared with Camtasia Studio, keep in mind that Camtasia creates a recording of the PowerPoint presentation, and then you end up in a new Camtasia project. Once you're working in Camtasia Studio, there are far more tools and options than you'll find on the Adobe Presenter tab.

Summary

I love using both Camtasia Studio and Adobe Presenter. One could argue which of the two tools is better for creating eLearning. If you're starting an eLearning project from scratch (and not using PowerPoint), Camtasia, combined with its suite of tools, is likely going to be your tool of choice. (Although Presenter does come with a nifty standalone tool called Adobe Presenter Video Creator. The tool makes quick work out of recording screen actions similar to Camtasia's Recorder tool.)

If PowerPoint is your eLearning starting point, the advantage has to go to Adobe Presenter. Since the Presenter tools are simply an Add-In to PowerPoint's powerful presentation tools, assuming you know how to use PowerPoint, you only need to learn what the specific tools on the Adobe Presenter group do to create compelling, interactive eLearning. By contrast, once the PowerPoint video is taken into Camtasia, you'll need to be pretty comfortable with the Camtasia Studio interface to produce your video.

If you'd like to see a video comparing Adobe Presenter to Camtasia Studio, check out the video I created on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

***

Looking for training on Adobe Presenter? Check our our live, online classes. Is TechSmith Camtasia Studio more your style? We've teamed up with ASTD and offer a live, full-day class on that program too. How about Adobe Captivate? We offer multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate. Need the training in-person? We can also bring the same great training onsite to your facility. Interested? Contact us for details.

January 28, 2014

eLearning: What Happened to Microsoft’s Free Image Gallery?

by AJ Walther

In my Optimizing PowerPoint Design for eLearning & Presentations class I like to sing the praises of Microsoft's free online image gallery. But then, a few weeks ago, the unthinkable happened. I went to pull an image from said image gallery, and was met instead with this:

Microsoft's new images page.

Do you know what this is? I'll tell you what this is. Useless. It looks like maybe you can search here, but believe you me-you cannot. Where once I found easily searchable free images, I am now met with a screen telling me how to use the newest Office to search for Images (which doesn't work for me as I have Office 2010), how to use Office Web Apps to find images (does anyone use that?), or how to use Bing to find these images (which I tried with zero success). The bottom of the page gives me links to images for Office 2010 or 2007, which I thought would be just the ticket. But no. Those links instead navigate to a page outlining how to insert clip art. Thanks for nothing.

I guess I shouldn't have been upset that a free service had disappeared. But, ya know what, I was upset. (Spoiler alert: I was upset enough that I kept digging until I found a solution. Read on for more!)

If you've used the free image gallery you probably know how great it is. But if you haven't, here's why it's such a valuable tool for eLearning designers:

You Can search by Style numbers

Let's say you found this image:

Woman with hammar

If you found the image in Microsoft's free image gallery, then it came complete with a linked style number.

Linked style number

Clicking the style number pulls up other images from the same style that can all be used together for a cohesive design. That's awesome.

Other images from the same style

Unless you already know the Style number, you cannot search by style number from the Office Clip Art pane. Nor does the clip art mention anywhere in its keywords what the style number is.

Search by General Style

Maybe a particular style doesn't have quite enough images for you. That's okay, the image gallery has a feature allowing you to search by general style–pulling up other images that look similar, even if they aren't technically part of the same style group.

Other images from the same style group

Other images 2

The Search feature within Office's Clip Art pane does not have this feature.

Note: This feature did not work for me in Chrome or Internet Explorer without first downloading Microsoft's Silverlight. I'm running Parallels, however, so I used Safari on the mac side without having to do any additional downloading.

More Selections

When I search within PowerPoint's Clip Art pane using the keyword "construction" for illustrations, including content from office.com, I get back 106 images to choose from. The same search online in the MS Image gallery brings back 156 images.

When I found I could no longer access my beloved Images section of MS Office's site I spent two hours being bounced around between Microsoft's live online chat and multiple tech support hotlines. I tried explaining what was missing every way I knew how and no one seemed to know what I was talking about. If I couldn't access the site anymore I was hopeful that someone could at least tell me how to identify a clip art image's style number from within MS Office for easy searching. This was not the case.

Luckily (and I know it is cruel to make you wait this long for the solution, but at least you weren't on the phone for two hours), I found the solution on my own. By bypassing the image search page of the Microsoft Office page and instead searching the Office site as a whole, I was able to find the hidden images! For your convenience, here is a direct link.

You're welcome.

(Note: When you click the direct link above, the resulting page will say "found no results” because you haven't searched for anything yet. Go ahead and type your search keyword into the search bar above the text to look for images. After you search you can adjust the Media Types at the left to filter your results.)

January 21, 2014

Adobe Captivate 7: Publishing Video Demos

by Kevin Siegel

Over the past few weeks I've shown you how to trim portions of a Captivate Video Demo and how to Pan & Zoom. This week, I'm focusing on the Publishing process for Video Demos.

Publishing a Video Demo (cpvc) might seem like a no-brainer if you have past exerience working with standard Captivate project (cptx). I'd be surprised if any Captivate developers reading this article haven't published at least once via File > Publish.

Here's what the standard Publish dialog box looks like:

When publishing a cptx project, you can elect to publish as SWF, HTML, PDF, or all of the above. You can also select Media from the options at the left and publish as a video file. The bottom line is that you have choices… lots of choices.

Publishing a Video Demo is, to put it mildly, different. As with a cptx project, you still choose File > Publish. However, the Publish dialog box that appears couldn't be more spartan:

SWF? Gone. HTML5, PDF? Gone and gone! If you're working with a Video Demo and go to publish, the assumption is that you want to publish, well, a video. And that's exactly what you get should you click the Publish button–an MP4 file that will play nicely on YouTube and just about any computer or hand-held device that supports video playback.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when customizing the settings in the Publish dialog box.

Profiles: There are three choices (Baseline, Main, and High). Use Baseline for mobile and video conferencing applications.Main is for standard-definition digital TV broadcasts. High is for high definition devices. While the High Profile leads to a longer publish time and more complex video, I've found that this option yields the best results for me.

Encoding: You've got two choices, Constant (CBR) and Variable (VBR). Constant is the default (and it's what I use 99.99% of the time). A Constant bit rate typically results in a smaller published video. Should you elect to specify a variable bit rate, Captivate decides when to use more bits to maintain quality. The file size increases when more bits are used.

FPS stands for Frames Per Second. The higher the value, the smoother your video will play, and the larger the published video will be. The standard FPS is 15.

Key Frame Interval: All videos contain key frames (milestones that represent every second of playtime for the video). The longer you set the Key Frame Interval, the smaller the published video file will be. However, if the video supports Search, the search time increases. If you set the interval short (less than 5 seconds), the size of the file increases but the search function works faster. The standard for videos intended for eLearning is 5 seconds.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate. We can also bring the same great training onsite to your facility. Interested? Contact us for details.

January 15, 2014

Adobe Captivate 7: Pan & Zoom Video Demos

by Kevin Siegel

Last week, I showed you how to trim portions of a Captivate Video Demo. This week, I'm focusing on the Pan & Zoom feature.

Captivate's Pan & Zoom feature, which is only available in Video Demos, is really two cool tools in one. Zooming gives you the ability to automatically get the learner closer to the action. Panning lets you automatically change the area of the screen that the learner sees. You can control exactly when the Pan & Zoom occurs, its Scale, Speed, Size, and Position.

To add a Pan & Zoom in a Video Demo, first position the Playhead on the Timeline where you'd like the Pan & Zoom.

On the Pan & Zoom panel, click the Add Pan & Zoom button (if the Pan & Zoom panel is not on your screen, choose Window > Pan & Zoom).

On the Timeline, a Pan & Zoom point is added (in the image below, it's the orange circle with a magnifying glass in the middle).

To control the Pan & Zoom, drag and resize the Pan & Zoom window on the Pan & Zoom panel. (The smaller you make the Pan & Zoom window, the larger the zoom.)

You can control how fast the zoom occurs by adjusting the Speed via the Pan & Zoom panel.

The fastest way to zoom the learner back out (so they can see the entire video) is to click the Zoom Out button on the Pan & Zoom panel.

If you'd like to see a demonstration of the Pan & Zoom feature, check out this video on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

January 9, 2014

Localization: Training & Development in Brazil

by Jen Weaver

In honor of the recent holidays, in this week's article we visit with Papai Noel who leaves his home in Greenland and brings us to the warm climate of Brazil. Brazil's Santa Claus sometimes dons a red silk suit to survive the heat of a summer Christmas and came through the front door on Christmas Eve since fireplaces are rare in this country. Let's look at some other fun facts and explore their cultural impact on training and development.

Test Your Knowledge of Brazilian Culture

What is the official language of Brazil?

Spanish
Portuguese
English

True or False? Brazil is Latin America's largest and most populous country.
True or False? The macho male image no longer exists in Brazilian culture.
The colors of the Brazilian flag are green and yellow. Should foreigners:

Try to wear this color combination as much as possible.
Pay it no mind when selecting outfits.
Avoid wearing this color combination.

Quick Tips for Training & Development in Brazil¹:

The family unit is highly valued in Brazilian culture, and loyalty is the first priority. Brazilians view family and personal life as private topics, and they are not discussed with acquaintances.
Emotions are involved in problem-solving, and one's feelings may override facts when making decisions. The Brazilian way also includes finding loopholes, so keep this in mind when instituting new practices or policies.
Brazilian time is not punctual. The importance of time is placed on the time spent together and on accomplishing the task rather than starting or ending meetings promptly. When scheduling classes, you may want to stress "American time", not "Brazilian time", so participants arrive promptly.
A warm friendly approach will receive a much better response than strictly professional interactions. When building in-person relationships, try to schedule meetings to run into meal times, as sharing a meal aids in establishing your connection. When arriving for a dinner or invited outing, it's considered polite to be 15 minutes late.
If training or conducting meetings in February or March, be mindful of the Brazil Carnival, which takes place the four days preceding Lent.
Brazilians often value the personal connections within a company more than the company name itself. When possible, maintain the same point of contact or trainer to retain rapport.
Animated and sometimes boisterous conversations-including interruptions- are the norm. Close proximity and physically touching the hands or arms are also common, so be prepared and try not to respond stiffly.
In a classroom setting, you may see students flicking their fingertips underneath the chin. This means they do not know the answer to a question.

Trivia Answers:

(b) Portuguese. Due to large immigrant groups, some communities also speak German, Spanish, Italian, French, English or Amerindian languages. Provide training documents in both English and Brazilian Portuguese (it's different from Portugal Portuguese).
True.
False. Many Brazilian men still view women as subordinate.
(c) Avoid wearing this color combination, as it may be perceived as offensive or insensitive.

***

Developing international training and development materials? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

January 7, 2014

Adobe Captivate 7: Trim Video Demos

by Kevin Siegel

The more I work with Captivate's Video Demo mode, the more I like it. If you have a need to demonstrate a quick concept, using Video Mode is the absolute fastest way to create eLearning.

To record a video using Video Demo mode, select Video Demo from the Create New area of Captivate's Welcome Screen. When the Recording Area appears, you record your screen actions just as you would if you recorded screen actions using the Software Simulation mode.

Unlike a typical Software Simulation (where there are multiple slides and Timelines), a Video Demo consists of a single video and just one Timeline.

While there are limits to how much editing you can do to a video project, you can insert images, Text Captions, Characters, and Smart Shapes. You can edit the mouse pointer shown in the video, add Pan & Zooms, and Trim the video. This week, I'm going to show you how to Trim a video.

Trim a Video

Open or record a Video Demo.
On the Timeline, click where you want to begin the Trim process. (The red bar you will see is known as the Playhead.)
From beneath the Timeline, click the Trim button. (Two markers will appear. Upon completion, the area between the markers will be deleted.)
Drag the two markers left or right as necessary to highlight the part of the video you want to delete.
Click the word Trim on the Timeline to trim the selection.

The selected part of the video will immediately be removed from the video.

Note: I've found plenty of ways to take advantage of Video Demos, keep in mind that Video Demos are, well, videos. Published videos will play on any computer (Mac, Windows), upload to YouTube, and play on most mobile devices (including the iPad). However, Video Demos cannot contain interactivity. You cannot add quizzes, buttons, click boxes, Advanced Actions, or Text Entry Boxes. Do keep that limitation in mind if you plan to produce mainly demos for your eLearning content.

If you'd like to see a demonstration of video trimming, check out this video on the IconLogic YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see some of my Video Demos, stay on our YouTube channel. Every video you see was created using Captivate's Video Demo feature.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

December 20, 2013

eLearning and PowerPoint: The Right to Bare Slides

by AJ Walther

I saw a guy the other day wearing a t-shirt that read, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Often the same holds true for PowerPoint presentations. "PowerPoint doesn't kill presentations, people kill presentations."

It's easy to point the finger at PowerPoint for making office meetings unsuccessful and eLearning lessons a snore, but the truth is that poor design is really to blame.

The good news is that you don't have to be a seasoned designer to produce beautiful and effective presentations. Here are a couple of tips to get you started.

Steer Clear of Bullets, Old-School Clip Art, and Backgrounds and Animation Effects

There are certainly occasions when maybe a bullet really is the most successful way to convey an idea. However, just because PowerPoint defaults to using a bulleted format doesn't mean that you should go with the flow and present all your information with a bullet in front of it.

Try splitting the bullets up into separate slides with a single image to illustrate each point or forego the text altogether and replace it with a chart, diagram, or other informative image.

It is not necessary to have every bit of information you cover on the slide. Encourage your audience to listen; and, if necessary, take notes based on what you say, not what is on the slide.

If the bullets were more for you than for your audience, put the bullets in the PowerPoint notes section so that only you can see them.

Nothing says "High School Presentation Circa 1997" quite like a dancing animated image clumsily plopped on a rainbow gradient background with a big, garish WordArt title (complete with myriad animation effects).

Keep in mind that PowerPoint presentations are plentiful–particularly bad ones. Trust me, your audience will not be impressed with how many moving, colorful parts each slide contains.

Consider taking more of a photographic approach to the images you use. PowerPoint comes pre-loaded with photograph clip art images you can use. If you find the selection isn't enough to suit your needs, try looking online for stock photos. There are many free sites, but keep in mind that to save time and frustration (and improve on the selection and quality) you might want to set aside a budget to pay for images. A useful list of stock photo sites can be found here.

Before

eLearning and PowerPoint: Before a redesign

After:

eLearning and PowerPoint: Redesigned slide 1

eLearning and PowerPoint: Redesigned slide 2

eLearning and PowerPoint: Redesigned slide 3

Use Full Bleed Pictures

If you want to really make a statement with your image, resist the temptation to slap it on a slide alongside your text. Instead simplify it by using one pertinent full-bleed image on the slide in conjunction with a very small blurb of text (or no text at all).

Be sure the image you use is high enough resolution so as not to pixelate (blur) and consider using text with enough contrast to be visible on your image.

Before:

eLearning and PowerPoint: Another slide before a redesign.

After:

eLearning and PowerPoint: Redesigned slide 4

December 11, 2013

Adobe Captivate 7.01: Color Swatches

by Kevin Siegel

Over the past few weeks, I've written about the enhancements you'll find in the recently-released service patch for Captivate 7 (an enhanced lock feature and a new Star Smart Shape). This week I'm going to show you how to use the new Swatches panel.

In the image below, I've added a logo onto a Captivate slide. I'd like to use the green contained in the logo on the Highlight Box you see to the left of the logo. I'd also like to be able to use that same color in other Captivate projects.

Adobe Captivate: Highlight Box and Logo.

To begin, I opened the Swatches panel (Window menu). Then I selected the Pick Color tool (the eye dropper shown in the image below).

Using the Pick Color tool, I clicked on the green color on the logo. In the image below, you can see that the color is added to the Swatches panel (#90B000).

The Enter swatch name dialog box opens. In the image below, I named my new Swatch LogoGreen and then clicked the OK button.

The LogoGreen swatch appears on the Swatches panel (it's the last swatch you see in the image below). I can now use the swatch and apply the color to any slide object.

Keep in mind that Swatches are shared by all Captivate projects so you won't have to recreate the Swatch every time you create a new project. In addition, you can import existing swatches from either Adobe Photoshop or Kuler by clicking the Load tool on the Swatches panel.

Adobe Captivate: Load swatches

If you'd like to see a demonstration of the new Swatches panel in action, check out this video on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

December 6, 2013

Training & Development in Belize

by Jen Weaver

Let's take an island adventure to Belize and explore some common cultural facts (and their impact on the training and development market).

Test your knowledge of Belizean culture with the true or false questions below:

True or False? Belizeans take a relaxed approach to most things.
True or False? The official language of Belize is English.

Quick Tips for Training & Development in Belize¹:

Facts alone do not substantiate a convincing argument. A person's feelings and individual perspectives are considered valuable when identifying the "truth" about a topic.
The relaxed culture of the Belizean people lends to risk taking, but Belizean's tend to avoid high-stress situations or direct confrontation.
Belize is a very masculine society. Women are not common in government or executive business roles. Keep this in mind when localizing images for business use and in forming your training teams.
Belizeans take a casual approach to time in relational settings but expect foreigners to be punctual for business appointments. Project deadlines are typically seen as guidelines or suggestions rather than final completion dates.
You will find it difficult to conduct business in Belize unless you are a native Belizean or can hire a local contact to represent your firm.
Belizeans base business decisions on relationships and personal affinity.
Business communications occur in English not English Creole.
Spelling follows British English not American.
Many Belizeans have lived or spent time in the United States (so American gestures are familiar).

Culture Quiz Answers:

True. Island culture prevails.
True. English is the official language however the local dialect is a form of English Creole that is incoherent to most English speakers. Spanish, Plautdietsch (a German dialect), and other indigenous languages are also spoken in Belize.

References:

¹Morrison, Terri, and Wayne A. Conaway, Kiss, Bow, Or Shake Hands, 2nd ed. (Avon: Adams Media, 2006).

***

Developing international training and development materials?Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.