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Camtasia Studio 8: Reset Application Preferences

by Kevin Siegel  

I'm hard at work on my newest Camtasia Studio book (for version 8, which was recently released by TechSmith). As with all of my books, there will be hundreds of screen captures. In Camtasia, I played around with some of the program's available settings (such as Font, Font Size, Color, etc) but I didn't want to keep any of those changes. Upon returning later to create the screen captures, I was dismayed to see that the changes that I made while playing around were retained by the Camtasia software. This preference change wasn't just within the current project, but within all future projects. Prior to creating screen captures, I had to return all of the settings to the initial defaults. The problem was, I didn't know what those defaults were.

I began scouring Camtasia's dialog boxes looking for a Restore Defaults button or a Reset Preferences button. I looked everywhere to no avail. Figuring I was missing something obvious, I contacted my rep at TechSmith. I heard back pretty quickly and was surprised to learn that I hadn't missed anything... there is no master reset button anywhere within the application.

All was not lost however. Instead of having to uninstall and then re-insall Camtasia to reset the preferences (something I have been told that some Camtasia developers do), you can delete Camtasia's saved settings. The location of these settings isn't in an obvious location, but it's an easy process.

1. Ensure that Camtasia Studio is not running
2. If you're running Windows XP, choose Start > Run; if you're running Windows 7, choose Start
3. Type regedit to open the Windows Registry Editor
4. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
5. Open Software
6. Open TechSmith
7. Open Camtasia Studio
8. Delete the 8.0 folder
   
     
9. Once you've deleted the 8.0 folder, close the Registry Editor

Upon restarting Camtasia, the 8.0 folder will automatically be recreated. You'll find that all of Camtasia's default settings have been restored. (Even the Welcome project you see when you first start Camtasia returns.)

eLearning: How to Incorporate Gamification Elements

by AJ George 

If you happened to catch my earlier article on the gamification of learning, then you know that I have been dubious about its effectiveness. To be clear, it's not the premise of having fun in learning that I feel we should be wary of. It's the tendency to turn everything into a competition based more on winning than on learning. I guess you could say I don't mind using a few tricks from gamers; it's the actual games that have me worried. Short of setting up levels and leader boards and the number of "lives" you get in this lesson, here are some game-like concepts you can use to punch up your lessons.

Stories, Yes. Bullets, No!

We've all heard that it is no longer cool to give a presentation of nothing but bullet points. But while it's easy to say "don't use bullets," it's a lot harder to figure out what to do instead. One option is to think like a video game developer. The objective of the game may be to save the princess, but to make the game compelling, you have to tell the princess's backstory, make us adore the princess, and then tell us what trouble the princess is in and how we'll save her.

At a minimum, create a work-like scenario. The learning objective may be to create a database in Excel, but that goal will seem more compelling if you tell the learner how we got the data, what problems we are having in using the data, and how we will solve those problems. Make your learning contextual. Give it meaning and interest, not bullets.

An even more compelling story will have actual characters and a string of events. Let's say your objective is to teach proper procedures for setting a broken bone. You could certainly create a checklist for deciding the proper course of action and apply that to humans in general. But it would make a more captivating eLearning module if you add a story context:

It's the bottom of the 8th in the high-school baseball game. Fifteen-year-old Havier Fuentes hits a line drive deep into center field. As the outfielder bobbles the ball, Havier flings himself into a diving slide into third base. As he reaches the bag, his hand catches the edge of the base. His forearm is broken in two places. You meet Havier in the hospital emergency room. You'll need to run your standard checklist for bone-setting. But first, you need to take a patient history from Havier's family.

Elaborate as much or as little as you need to create interest and get the point across.

Challenge Learners and Promote Creativity

That same story-telling approach can be used to spiff up quizzes.  In keeping with our medical theme, let's say you want to quiz your learners on surgical tools. You could, of course, simply ask learners to list tools. You could also do a name and application match-up. But how about this instead:

You are in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. You are the only non-zombie in sight. You know your medical experience will eventually come in handy. Before you escape from the zombie-infested hospital, you decide to grab some equipment. But you can only carry five things. What do you grab and why?

Provide Continual On-The-Spot Feedback

One of the best things about games, particularly of the video variety, is that you don't have to wait to find out how you did. Everything you do in a game provides instant feedback. "+500" flashes on the screen. Negative life points show up in your dashboard. The same isn't always true for traditional education. You often have to wait for a teacher to grade your paper and give it back to you or wait until the end of a course to see how you fared. Capitalize on the eLearning medium by letting your learner know right away how they did. Instead of a quiz where results are given at the end, consider displaying results after each question. Perhaps you could even give the learner the opportunity to learn from and change mistakes instantly.

The overall take-home here is that adding badges, levels, or points to learning is a game, and that's probably a fad. But designing and presenting learning objectives in a more engaging and meaningful manner? That's valuable-and fun.

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations.

Adobe Captivate: Adding Assets Doesn't Have to Be a Drag

by Kevin Siegel  

When it comes time to add assets such as images, animation or audio to your Captivate project, it's no secret that you can accomplish the task by choosing Insert and then selecting Image or Animation. To insert audio, visit the Audio menu.

The process of adding assets to a project isn't difficult, but it could become a major drag--especially if you need to add several assets. Perhaps you need to import 100 audio clips. How many times will you choose Audio > Import before you begin to go insane?

Take it easy, breathe deep and check out this sweet technique that will surely save you time when adding assets to a Captivate project.

First, create or open a Captivate project. Next, open the folder containing the assets you'd like to import. Position the Captivate and asset windows side-by-side, and then drag the asset directly onto a Captivate slide. 

Using this technique, you can quickly add multiple assets such as images and audio files to your project (to add multiple assets, shift-click the assets to select them, and then drag them onto a project slide).

After dragging the assets onto a slide, they will appear on the slide and within the Library so they can easily be dragged onto other project slides later (you can display the Library via Window > Library).

Speaking of the Library, you can import multiple assets directly to the Library, instead of to individual slides, by clicking the Import tool at the top of the Library. 

 

Drag assets onto slides? Import assets directly to the Library? Surely one of these two techniques will fit the bill for you. And I think you'll agree that neither technique is a drag.

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? I teach two live, online Captivate classes. You can learn more here.

Writing & Grammar: More and More Confusing Words

by Jennie Ruby  

Several respondents called these word-choice challenges fun, so let's do this one more time. Your challenge this week, once again, is to choose the right word or phrase:

1. I wish someone had appraised/apprised me of the situation with the angry client.
2. I thought the books had already/all ready been shipped.
3. When I left on Friday, the books were already/all ready to go.
4. When I got back to work on Wednesday, I found out the shipment had been held so we could send the books and the other items altogether/all together.
5. Meanwhile, the client had told us it was alright/all right to send the items separately.
6. I was loathe/loath to make the phone call, because I was not sure how to handle the situation.
7. Nevertheless, I made the phone call without further ado/adieu.
8. Being as how/beings as how/because I called right away, I was able to soothe/sooth the client's temper.
9. Because of /due to our mix-up, I decided to offer the client a discount on a future purchase.
10. However, the client said she could/couldn't care less about getting a discount.
11. Instead, she tried to convince/persuade me to give her the entire shipment for free.
12. I said that getting good service was differentthan/different from getting products for no cost.
13. I then decided I better/had better offer overnight shipping on the order.
14. Once she agreed, I couldn't hardly wait/could hardly wait to get off the phone and do a victory dance.
15. After our discussion, the client was literally/figuratively on fire with enthusiasm for our business.

Results from last week's Challenge

Your answers this week are brought to you by Lorna McLellan, the only respondent with 100% of the answers correct. Congratulations, Lorna! Also an honorable mentions go out to Susan Czubiak and Mary Lee Foley for pointing out that Boy Scout is capitalized and should be two words! That's what I get for ignoring Word's red underline!

1. He led the charge into the superstore for the one-day sales event.
2. The biennial event last occurred in 2010.
3. You may have to wait awhile to see these prices again.
4. I remember playing the first version of that classic game back when I was 12.
5. The Boy Scout enjoyed his celebrity after saving the little dog from the stream. 
6. When the bully who had threatened the boy gave his congratulations, butter wouldn't melt.... [assuming it was a cold greeting, so cold that butter would not melt in his mouth!]
7. Can you ensure that the dog does not run away again?
8. I am so eager to hear about the ceremony that I can hardly wait.
9. She slept soundly, knowing that the puppy was safe.
10. Here is the latest news on the price decrease.

Percent of respondents who missed each word:
biennial	60%
awhile	45%
celebrity	45%
wouldn't	45%
classic	10%
ensure	10%
eager	5%
led	0%
soundly	0%
latest	0%

The statistical analysis is interesting this week, as several words proved to be no challenge: everyone correctly answered led, soundly and latest. Only 5 or 10 percent of us missed eager, classic and ensure. Here are brief explanations for those.

Although there is some overlap in meaning between eagerand anxious, a careful writer will be aware of the connotations: Eager is more positive and enthusiastic; anxious is more negative and afraid.

Because Webster's dictionary describes how people use a word, rather than always indicating whether they are using it accurately, the third meaning of anxious is the same meaning as eager. However, the synonyms (from Merriam-Webster.com) tell the tale:

anxious--aflutter, antsy, nervous, atwitter, dithery, edgy, goosey, het up, hinky [slang], hung up, ill at ease, insecure, jittery, jumpy, nervy, perturbed, queasy (also queazy), tense, troubled, uneasy, unquiet, upset, uptight, worried

eager--agog, antsy, anxious, ardent, athirst, avid, crazy, desirous, enthused, enthusiastic, excited, geeked [slang], great, greedy, gung ho, hepped up, hopped-up, hot, hungry, impatient, juiced, keen, nuts, pumped, raring, solicitous, stoked [slang], thirsty, voracious, wild, champing at the bit, chomping at the bit

Here is a memory aid for classic versus classical:

Classical music is Mozart, classic rock is Led Zeppelin.

classic--timeless, authentic, setting a standard

classical--refers to music, art etc. from a specific era

Many of us are already clear on this one:

Ensure--make sure; assure-reassure someone

And here are the harder ones:

Biennial/biannual--I long ago made a rule for myself to always look up these words before using them, along with the similar words biweekly and bimonthly, simply because they are so easily confused. And since I don't use them often-no more than twice a year (or is that every other year?)-looking them up is a good practice.

A while/awhile--use the two-word version only after a preposition, such as for, in or after, like this:

I stared at the words for a while.

When you leave out the preposition, awhile becomes a one-word adverb:

I stared at the words awhile.

Notoriety is negative fame; celebrity is positive fame. We are all so used to seeing celebrity as a noun meaning famous person that we may overlook its other meaning as simply fame.

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If you like Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Join her online and learn about Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Step-by-Step Scripts and Training Documents.

Writing & Grammar: More Confusing Words

by Jennie Ruby  

Because the results of last week's challenge were so revealing (see below), I bring you a similar challenge this week. Choose the correct word in these examples--discussion to follow.

1. He lead/led the charge into the superstore for the one-day sales event.
2. The biennial/biannual event last occurred in 2010.
3. You may have to wait a while/awhile to see these prices again.
4. I remember playing the first version of that classic/classical game back when I was 12.
5. The boyscout enjoyed his celebrity/notoriety after saving the little dog from the stream.
6. When the bully who had threatened the boy gave his congratulations, butter wouldn't/would melt....
7. Can you ensure/assure that the dog does not run away again?
8. I am so anxious/eager to hear about the ceremony that I can hardly wait.
9. She slept fitfully/soundly knowing that the puppy was safe.
10. Here is the last/latest news on the price decrease.

As always, send your answers straight to me.

***

Results From Last Week's Challenge

In the aftermath of the election, one clear winner was statistics. One statistician came pretty close to correctly calling every race. So to join the statisticians, I analyzed the results of last week's challenge with a spreadsheet in addition to a dictionary and grammar book. Here are the answers, brought to you by our only 100% correct respondent this week, Ginny Supranowitz:

1. We had less/fewer trick-or-treaters this year than we expected.
2. We have a lot of leftover candy like/such as Milk Duds and Smarties.
3. The trick-or-treater's mother complemented/complimented us on our fall decorations.
4. A lot of voters seem disinterested/uninterested in the election.
5. Many have become weary/wary of all the automated phone calls.
6. We really should be more weary/wary about clicking links in junk email.
7. The weather reporter emphasized the enormity/enormousness of Sandy.
8. The reporter implied/inferred that she would rather not be standing so close to the waves.
9. I implied/inferred from what she said that she was soaking wet.
10. The storm reached further/farther inland than most hurricanes.
11. That storm was certainly not an every day/everyday occurrence.
12. I'm glad my pajamas are not inflammable/flammable. [Inflammable and flammable are synonyms.]
13. We wondered if/whether/weather our cousins in New Jersey had power
14. We are glad to have survived this historic/historical storm.
15. A cyclone is when/occurs when a circular wind pattern develops over the ocean.

And here are your results, statistically speaking: 

Correct Answer	Percent of respondents who missed it
Fewer	0%
Complimented	0%
Weary	0%
Wary	0%
Historic	0%
Occurs when	0%
such as	7%
Inferred	11%
Everyday	15%
Implied	19%
Farther	19%
Uninterested	41%
whether	48%
Enormousness	56%
Flammable	93%

Now, before we declare flammable the most difficult word in English, I have to admit that the flammable/inflammable item was a trick question. I counted it correct only if you noted that both words actually mean the same thing! Only one respondent, Ginny Supranowitz, picked up on that detail.

As for enormousness/enormity, even the dictionary is conflicted over this one. Its discussion distances itself from those who insist on making the distinction between size (enormousness) and moral/emotional judgment (enormity); nevertheless, all of the synonyms for enormity have the moral or social outrage component: atrocity, badness, depravedness, evilness, heinousness, hideousness, monstrosity, vileness, wickedness. By contrast, here are some of Webster's synonyms for enormousness: colossal, elephantine, huge, gargantuan, giant, immense, jumbo, leviathan, mammoth, massive...you get the idea. For those who want a loophole: Meaning number 3 of enormity isimmensity. But with all of the connotations of enormitypointing to moral outrage, if you just mean large, this word is not precise. Jing Ping Fan pointed out, however, that if you did mean that the hurricane filled you with horror over itsmonstrous size, then maybe there is enough emotional/moral valence to tip your description over into enormity.

Here are some details about the other answers frequently missed:

• Use whether for choosing between or among alternatives, if for setting up a condition.
• Uninterested = bored; disinterested means you don't have a financial interest riding on the outcome.
• Farther is for distance; further is for other meanings such as deeper.
• The person who says the words that carry the additional meaning does the implying. The person who hears the words or sees a behavior and derives meaning from that is the one who is inferring something.
• Everyday is an adjective that describes a noun: an everyday occurrence. Every day is an adverbial phrase indicating when the action of the sentence takes place: we see this every day.
• Such as means the items you are naming are actual examples in the group; like means you are saying that your items are like these, but do not necessarily include these. In the example in the challenge, such as means that Milk Duds and Smarties are actually in my leftover Halloween bowl. Like would have meant that I had candy similar to those brands, but that I did not necessarily have those exact brands.

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If you like Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Join her online and learn about Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Step-by-Step Scripts and Training Documents.

eLearning: Is This Learning, Winning, or Just Cheating?

by AJ George 

To elaborate on my previous gamification articles, I'd like to touch on the related issue of false achievement--learning how to play the system, or even cheat, in a game or learning environment to acquire the best game outcome (i.e., a win or level up) without actually getting the best learning outcome.

This is a real concern when gamifying a learning environment. What happens when the student's desire to win becomes greater than the desire to learn? Similarly, what if the desire to win is already the driving force from the beginning?

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education provides some disturbing evidence--Dozens of Plagiarism Incidents Are Reported in Coursera's Free Online Courses:

Students taking free online courses offered by the startup company Coursera have reported dozens of incidents of plagiarism, even though the courses bear no academic credit. This week a professor leading one of the so-called Massive Open Online Courses posted a plea to his 39,000 students to stop plagiarizing, and Coursera's leaders say they will review the issue and consider adding plagiarism-detection software in the future.

But why would anyone cheat in a not-for-credit course? Perhaps because, for some people, feeling accomplished or doing well as compared to their peers is more important than actually learning.

Hamburg University's Sebastian Deterding gave a presentation a couple years ago at Playful 2010 in London called Pawned. Gaming and Its Discontents. In that lecture he spoke about troubling issues in the gamification of learning--particularly the issue of false achievement and "gaming the system." One example he gave was of Australian economist Joshua Gans. Using his knowledge of economics, Gans decided to potty train his daughter by rewarding her with Skittles candies every time she successfully "went." Over time his daughter started to "game the system" and conditioned herself to go potty every 20 minutes to increase her Skittle payout. When it came time for the younger sibling to be potty trained, Gans added a social element to the Skittle-potty game and rewarded his older daughter every time her brother went to the potty. So, for optimum Skittle profit, she gave her brother lots of water so he'd have to "go" more. If his children ended up successfully potty trained, do we care that the system was gamed in the process? Or does this negate the success altogether?

The principle of Skittle potty training relates back to cheating in the non-credit courses in that it appears it may be in human nature to "win," regardless of what the over-arching effects may be... even if you're only hurting yourself in the long run.
But just how common is cheating in online courses and eLearning? This post by Anna Luce of the Instructional Design & Development blog has some insights on cheating in the online classroom. One study she mentions, conducted by Marshall University, found that 74 percent of respondents felt it was easier to cheat in an online class and 61 percent thought that their classmates would be five times more likely to cheat in an online class. This, however, appears to be only the perception, not the reality, as another study by Friends University showed that online students were actually less likely to cheat than their face-to-face peers and that "the amount of academic misconduct among online students may not be as prevalent as believed."

In the end, maybe it doesn't matter. Online or in-person, maybe there will always be those people who want to "win," regardless of what they actually get out of a class or a lesson. If, however, you're the facilitator of an online course and would like to take steps against online cheating or safeguard against anyone trying to game your system, you may want to check out this paper: Ethics and Distance Education: Strategies for Minimizing Academic Dishonesty in Online Assessment. Additionally, if you're an online instructor, or have taken an online course, I'd love to hear from you about your experience with cheating in the online setting.

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

Adobe Captivate: FPS Your MP4's

by Kevin Siegel  

I received an email from a Captivate developer who was publishing a Captivate project as an MP4 video so that it could be used in Adobe Premiere. She was required to deliver an MP4 that was published at a frame rate of 30 frames per second (fps). She checked her Captivate publishing settings (via File > Publish Settings) and verified that Captivate was set to publish at 30 fps.

After publishing the MP4 video, she learned that the Frames Per Second setting in the Publish dialog box controls published SWFs, not MP4s. In fact, the MP4 she published was actually set to 15fps, which was unacceptable for her needs. Unfortunately, there is no Captivate setting that controls the fps of MP4 videos... she was stuck.

I sent a quick email to the Adobe Captivate team on her behalf inquiring if there was a workaround. It turns out that there is. Adobe has received multiple emails from Captivate developers requesting a way to output MP4 videos at 30fps instead of 15fps. The Adobe team responded by creating a small text file (MP4Settings.ini) that simply sets the fps for published MP4 videos to 30fps during the Publish process. I've included both a link to the MP4Settings.ini file and quick instructions on its use below

1. Download the MP4Settings.ini file to your computer.
2. If necessary, close Captivate.
3. Copy the downloaded MP4Settings.ini file to the Captivate install directory (this is typicallyC:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate.
4. Start Captivate and re-publish the project again as an MP4.

While videos will work nicely on sites such as YouTube and play on mobile devices such as the Apple iPad, the video is, well, simply a video. Any interactivity that you might have added to the lesson won't work at all. If you want to publish content that will remain interactive while accessed with a mobile device, you should consider publishing as HTML5 instead.

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? I teach two live, online Captivate classes.

Writing & Grammar: Confusing Words

by Jennie Ruby  

Sometimes confusing words take us by surprise, and sometimes we just blank on them. Being familiar with commonly confused words can help. The following words and phrases are like sharks lurking in the waters of our language: watch out! Use this challenge to raise your awareness as well as test your prowess with these word and phrase pairs.

Challenge on confusing words:

1. We had less/fewer trick-or-treaters this year than we expected.
2. We have a lot of leftover candy like/such as Milk Duds and Smarties.
3. The trick-or-treater's mothercomplemented/complimented us on our fall decorations.
4. A lot of voters seem disinterested/uninterestedin the election.
5. Many have become weary/wary of all the automated phone calls.
6. We really should be more weary/wary about clicking links in junk email.
7. The weather reporter emphasized theenormity/enormousness of Sandy. (I actually saw this one used incorrectly several times during the hurricane news coverage.)
8. The reporter implied/inferred that she would rather not be standing so close to the waves.
9. I implied/inferred from what she said that she was soaking wet.
10. The storm reached further/farther inland than most hurricanes.
11. That storm was certainly not an every day/everyday occurrence.
12. I'm glad my pajamas are not inflammable/flammable.
13. We wondered if/whether/weather our cousins in New Jersey had power.
14. We are glad to have survived this historic/historical storm. (Yep, I saw that one used incorrectly, too.)
15. A cyclone is when/occurs when a circular wind pattern develops over the ocean.

When you are ready, send your answers straight to me.

Results of Contractions versus Pronouns Challenge

Our contractions challenge last week was very popular, with a record number of responders. "Wow that really took me back!" says reader Meaghan Anderson. "Piece of cake," adds Krista Allen.

David Zimmerle took it up a notch and added the contraction it'd for it had in number 1. That was a good move! A couple of readers asked whether dean's list should be capitalized, to which I suggest that if it is a specific dean's list, yes. If it refers generically to a nonspecific dean's list, no. And Louise Nicholson expressed an insecurity I believe we should all feel when dealing with these: "I see these types of errors all over the place, so I hope I got them right." The fact that so many of us KNOW the right answer yet these errors occur in print and online so frequently tells me that we may not be as nervous and careful as we should be about contractions versus pronouns! Here are your results:

Correct answers to the contractions versus pronouns challenge are brought to you by Ron Turner:

1. The way the raccoon was walking, I assumed it had hurt it'sits foot.
2. It's about time we started getting our pronouns correct!
3. Your You're not going to tell me your you're not on the dean's list this semester!
4. The cyclone might flood your basement even if itsit's not below the water table.
5. The old table, who's whose supports were weak, collapsed under the weight of the cat.
6. Who's Whose car is parked in the police chief's parking spot?
7. The kids carried their candy in there their pockets, so they did not need plastic pumpkins.
8. If your downspouts are blocked, your eaves may leak.

Congrats to our hundred-percenters this week (alphabetically by first name): Barbara Veneri, Brenda Sing, Clay Walnum, David Pitts, David Zimmerle, Deb Pekin, Geri A. Moran, Ginny Supranowitz, Jay Herman, Joan P Dickerson, Karen L. Busser, Kathryn J. Meloche, Krista Allen, Lori Vuyk-Farnsworth, Louise Nicholson, Meaghan Anderson, Stacey Edwards, andTanya Davis.

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If you like Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Join her online and learn about Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Step-by-Step Scripts and Training Documents.

eLearning: Is Repetition the Key?

by AJ George 

Recently I was trying out Knowledge Guru, which, according to its site, is "a game engine that uses the power of play to help learners learn facts fast." I've been reading a lot lately about the gamification of learning but had never heard of Knowledge Guru before, so I thought I'd look into it and see what possible implications it could have for the eLearning field. I think a lot of companies will balk at the large price tag attached to the service, but if it's within your company's budget, the science upon which the service is based seems to be sound, and it might be an incredibly useful learning tool for your organization. This article, however, is not about Knowledge Guru, but instead about what testing the product made very clear to me: repetition in learning works.

I'm sure this is not groundbreaking information for anyone in the eLearning field, but as someone who is involved frequently on the designing and delivering side of eLearning and very rarely on the receiving side, I was surprised at how easily I was able to learn foreign concepts just with repetition.

Knowledge Guru's sample game revolves around football facts. Now you have to understand, I do not like football. I do not have any knowledge of the game or how it is played, and, what is more, I have little to no interest in acquiring said knowledge. But what I do have is an interest in being at the top of a leader board, so that was my motivation as I entered Knowledge Guru's world.

And that world turned out to be a place where the game throws you right into a question without giving backup information. My first thought was that this was a shortcoming. It seems counterproductive to throw a learner right into a quiz without first giving them the knowledge needed to potentially answer the questions correctly. But as the quiz progressed, the same questions were asked again in a different format. The new wording of the questions and the answers forced me to carefully read each question and all of the answer choices. And about halfway through the quiz, I realized that this quiz was doing something my boyfriend has continually failed to do: it was teaching me the rules of football.

Now I can't say that the next time football is on the tube I will enjoy watching it. But I certainly do plan to shock my boyfriend by knowing all (okay, some of) the rules!

Are you utilizing repetition in your eLearning? Is it working? What other learning mechanisms are you successfully employing? I'm looking forward to reading your comments.

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations.

Adobe Captivate 6: When It Comes to Video Color Mode, Every Bit Counts

by Kevin Siegel  

A student attending a recent Advanced Captivate 6 online class was lamenting the poor color quality in her Captivate lessons. She had recorded a lesson using a combination of the Simulation and Video modes. When she previewed her lesson to the class, we could clearly see a shift in color quality between the slides in the simulation part of the lesson and the video portion. (The slides themselves looked great... the color in the video was not very good at all.)

Before showing you a fix to the color-quality issue, you should understand how easy it is to create a part-screen capture, part-video eLearning lesson using Captivate. All you need to do is record a lesson using any of Captivate's Automatic recording modes (Demo, Assessment, Training or Custom). During the recording process, simply drag your mouse within the recording area. Instead of Captivate creating a single screen capture (as would normally be the case with any click you make during the recording process), Captivate will create a single slide containing a video showing the entire drag process. This automatic video feature is handy if you'd like to demonstrate a more complex concept on the computer beyond what would be effective with individual screen captures.

By default, Captivate will create videos using 16 bit color (instead of 32 bit color). The lower setting will result in smaller videos. However, you will see some pretty nasty color degradation between the standard screen captures and the video portion of the lesson. The solution to the color degradation issue is to increase the Video Color Mode to 32 bit before recording the lesson. It's a simple process. ChooseEdit > Preferences (or Adobe Captivate > Preferences if you are using a Macintosh). Select Video Demo from the Recording group of Preferences and then select 32 bit from the Video Color Mode area.

 

 

While changing the Video Color Mode to 32 bit will have no effect on any videos in existing projects, all new videos recorded from this point forward will use the enhanced mode, and you'll enjoy fantastic color in your videos.

 

Note: As stated in the image above, using 32 bit color instead of 16 bit color will result in larger videos and therefore, larger published files. However, the increase in quality may well be worth that price (assuming you don't go overboard with the amount of video in any one lesson).

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? I teach two live, online Captivate 6 classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).