The Logical Blog by IconLogic

TEACHING ONLINE: True eLearning Integration via Adobe Connect

by Kevin Siegel, CTT+, COTP

When I teach my live, online Certified Online Training Professional course, one of the core concepts I encourage is blended learning (combining online digital media with traditional classroom teaching concepts). Specifically, there's great value in integrating eLearning (asynchronous training) with live (synchronous) training by providing access to eLearning content from within the virtual training space.

 

Published eLearning content can typically be provided to online students via a Materials pod or direct link (URL) you type into the Chat pod. All of the main training platforms (WebEx, GoToTraining, Adobe Connect) provide Chat and Materials pods, although they might give the pods different names.

 

The problem with sending students outside of the training space to engage with eLearning content is that the student leaves the virtual classroom. Once your learners are outside, good luck getting them back.

 

In my experience using many of the online training platforms, only one of the vendors offers a truly integrated blended-learning experience and allows you to share eLearning content directly from within the training room, and that’s Adobe with its virtual training platform Connect.

 

Here’s how you can share eLearning courses from within Connect. First, create the eLearning content in Adobe Captivate, and then publish as an SWF.

 

From within Adobe Connect, choose Share Document.

 

 

Click the Browse My Computer button and upload the SWF you published with Captivate. In the image below, I’ve already uploaded a SWF I created with Captivate called UsingNotepad. Once you’ve uploaded content, it stays in the Select Document to Share area so you don’t have to upload content again and again and again.

 

 

All you need to do now is click the OK button and everyone in the virtual room will not only see the eLearning, they’ll be able to interact with it independent of the other attendees.

 

 

The ability of virtual attendees to work through the eLearning content independently is so cool, it's the one feature that might encourage you to select Adobe Connect as your training platform above others... and Adobe Captivate as your eLearning tool. If you’re thinking about going the Connect route, head on over to Engage Systems, tell them your friends at IconLogic said hello, and then ask for a demo of Adobe Connect.

 

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If you'd like to learn how to learn how to teach live, online classes, check out ICCOTP's certification course.

 

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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.

ARTICULATE STORYLINE 360: Three Cheers for Text-to-Speech

by Kevin Siegel, CTT+, COTP

During our live, online Articulate Storyline Beginner classes, we teach students how to import and record voiceover audio. The most common question we get about voiceover audio is “Can Storyline convert text to audio files?” The answer has always been "no." However, “no” became “yes” thanks to a recent Storyline 360 update.

 

If you select the Insert tab on the Ribbon and click the Audiotool (located in the Media group), you’ll find Text-to-Speech. Yayyyy! (If you don't see Text-to-Speech as shown below, and you're using Storyline 360, start Articulate 360 and see if updates are available.)

 

 

Before using Text-to-Speech, I suggest a little pre-work. If you’ve created a voiceover script (or have access to it), you will save yourself a lot of extra work in Storyline because you can copy and paste the script text into Storyline’s Notes area (instead of typing). The Notes can easily be converted to Speech.

 

 

Next, choose Insert > Media > Audio > Text-to-Speech to open the Insert Text-to-Speech dialog box. From the upper left of the dialog box, you can select from an awesome number of languages.

 

 

Choose your narrator and, if you'd like, use the Preview Voice option to get a feel for how your narrator is going to sound.

 

 

 

You can type the script text manually if you're into that sort of thing (the typing I mean). But remember the Notes I encouraged you to create earlier? Click the Copy From Slide Notes button and those notes will instantly appear in the panel (there's no extra typing required... I love that).

 

Click the Insert button and you're done, done, done. The resulting audio file appears at the bottom left of the slide.

 

 

If you'd like to hear the resulting audio (and who wouldn't?), right-click the speaker icon and choose Preview.

 

 

After you've added the Text-to-Speech, you can change to a different language or Narrator by visiting the Audio Tools tab and clicking Text-to-Speech and clicking the Update button.

 

Thanks, Articulate for making the whole Text-to-Speech thing so fast and easy!

 

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If you are looking to learn all things eLearning, including Articulate Storyline, check out these live, online and awesomely interactive classes.

 

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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.

IconLogic Now Offering CompTIA A+ Certification Prep Course

The CompTIA A+ Certification is the base-certification for the entire IT industry. The certification is required by various agencies within the US Government as well as many State and Local Governments.  Private business and industry have followed Government regulations and have made the A+ certification a condition of employment, continued employment, and career advancement. Dice Inc, the large IT Internet job board, has ranked the A+ Certification 3^rd out of all IT certifications as having the largest impact on income. 

The IconLogic A+ Certification curriculum maps to the CompTIA Published Examination objectives, via classroom instruction and courseware, “A+ Study Hall”

Featuring an A+ Certified trainer who is also a Certified Online Training Professional (COTP) with 15 years of IT experience, IconLogic provides each attendee the following:

• Support until you are certified. This support can be via email, telephone, or additional online study sessions.
• Job placement assistance via recommendation.
• If your IT experience level is not up to the level recommended by CompTIA, we will furnish approximately 25 basic lessons via internet download and furnish online basic instruction. 
• Unlimited online, 2.5-hour study sessions (held on regularly posted dates from 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Eastern).
• A methodology that works, but should you fail an exam, we will furnish your next exam voucher at no charge!
• Course attendees receive two exam vouchers, courseware, and practice testing.

Learn more about these Guaranteed to Run (GTR) courses.

ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Where Did The Old Trials and Assets Go?

by Kevin Siegel, COTP, CTT+

As a publisher of popular step-by-step workbooks such as “Adobe Captivate: The Essentials,” “Articulate Storyline: The Essentials,” and more, we know first-hand how frustrating it can be when assets mentioned in our books are moved or removed by the software vendors.

 

Take Adobe’s eLearning assets used by Adobe Captivate. With every new release of Adobe Captivate, Adobe posts new (fresh) assets to support the latest and greatest release. However, the old assets seem to disappear entirely making it impossible for users of older Captivate versions to install, much less take advantage of, the free assets.

 

Rejoice users of the older Captivate versions! Adobe hasn’t up and left you behind. The assets are available via one handy site.

 

Click the image below to access the asset site for several legacy versions of Captivate.

 

 

And if you’re looking for the legacy versions of the Captivate trials, Adobe has you covered there too. 

 

 

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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.

 

 

ADOBE ROBOHELP: Getting Around Preview Errors

by Willam van Weelden, COTP

RoboHelp is an awesome help authoring tool. However, even the best tools misbehave.

While working with RoboHelp, you are likely to come across error message from time to time. For instance, atsome point you'll likely be tasked with customizing a Screen Layout.

You can access RoboHelp's Screen Layout Editor by visiting the Output Setup pod. (Projects > Pods > Output Setup). From there, expand the Screen Layouts and double-click the layout you want to edit.

You can make all kinds of changes to a layout including modifying its colors and images. During the editing process, it’s reasonable to assume that you’ll want to see a Preview. For this, the Screen Layout Editor has a Save and Preview button in the bottom right of the dialog box.

When attempting to show the preview, you'll likely see the following error message:

 

 

If you encounter the error, don’t panic. The error is caused by an internal script error; you haven't done anything wrong. You can simply click the Yes button to continue. (If the same message appears again, click Yes again.)

The preview will open. Unfortunately, if you click anything within the Preview window (such as a different topic), the same error message will appear.

I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to avoid all of these error message. Go ahead and click the Save and Preview button. Then, from the upper-left of the Preview, click the View with button and select your browser of choice. The preview will open in your browser without additional error messages.

 

 

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If you'd like to learn how to use RoboHelp, check out Willam's live, online RoboHelp classes.

 

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Willam van Weelden is a Certified Online Training Professional (COTP), veteran Help Author, RoboHelp consultant, and technical writer based in the Netherlands. He is an Adobe Community Professional, ranking him among the world's leading experts on RoboHelp. Willam’s specialties are HTML5 and RoboHelp automation. Apart from RoboHelp, Willam also has experience with other technical communications applications such as Adobe Captivate and Adobe FrameMaker.

Abrams' Guide to Grammar: Third Edition

We are proud to announce that our newest book, Abrams' Guide to Grammar: Third Edition, is now available on Amazon.com.

 

About The Book

 

Using IconLogic’s proven “skills & drills” training approach, this user-friendly, concise grammar reference is designed for word people—writers, editors, proofreaders, managers, administrative staff, and students.

 

Abrams’ Guide to Grammar: Third Edition covers problems of grammar and punctuation. If you communicate by letter, memo, report, or email, you’ll benefit from this lively collection of tutorials. 

Abrams’ Guide to Grammar demystifies the rules—it provides practical experiences to reinforce learning and to help you build confidence with your daily writing. Each exercise offers a thorough explanation in the answer key.

 

If any of the following topics intimidate you or if you need a refresher on grammar and punctuation rules, this is the book for you:

• Parts of Speech
• Phrases (Prepositional and Verbal)
• Sentence Fragments
• Run-on Sentences
• Commas with Independent and Dependent Clauses
• Commas with Which and That
• Commas after Introductory Constructions
• Commas with Nonrestrictive Phrases
• Commas in a Series
• Verb Tense and Mood
• Active vs. Passive Voice
• Subject-Verb Agreement
• Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
• Pronoun Case
• The Pronouns Who and Whom
• Parallelism
• Misplaced and
• Dangling Modifiers

About The Author

 

Ellie Abrams, president of ESA Editorial and Training Services Inc., has conducted training seminars for a wide spectrum of clients. Writers, editors, secretaries, managers, administrative staff, proofreaders, lawyers, educators, scientists, and students have benefited from her expertise. Ellie co-authored The New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage and STET Again!

 

The book comes in two flavors: Print and eBook for the Kindle.

ADOBE CAPTIVATE & GOANIMATE: Sharing Voices Is Quick and Easy

by Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP

In an earlier article, I described how I created an eLearning lesson that has GoAnimate characters discussing some spreadsheet problems. At a certain point, the lesson zooms in on a character’s computer screen, and suddenly a software simulation starts in Adobe Captivate. The voice of one of the screen characters becomes the voice who is guiding my learner through the spreadsheet lesson.

 

But how did I get the same TTS voice from GoAnimate to Captivate? The secret is, I didn’t. I went the other direction. 

 

Knowing that I would want the same voice both in GoAnimate and in Captivate, I created some fake slides in Captivate, with the dialog script for the screen characters I was creating in GoAnimate typed into the Slide Notes.

 

 

From there, I used the NeoSpeech voices that come with Captivate to create high-quality TTS audio files. 

 

 

Next, I exported the audio files from Captivate. (An audio badge below a slide in the Filmstrip indicates that there is audio attached to the slide. Clicking the badge makes exporting easy. So does the Export tool in the Library.)

 

 

Then I imported those files into GoAnimate, assigning them to my characters in the appropriate scenes. 

 

Sure, TTS is still not the best audio option, but the effect of having the voice of an animated character you just saw walking and talking in a video smoothly continue as the voice that is teaching you about a spreadsheet is kind of neat. At the end of the Captivate software simulation, you see the animated character again, still talking in that same voice.

 

Of course you might want to have a more human sound to your GoAnimate videos. You can easily do that by recruiting friends, colleagues, or family to play the various roles. Voice acting for screen characters is not just for famous people like Beyonce, who is voicing Nala in the new Lion King remake. You can cast yourself along with Joan from Accounting in your next animated video!

 

Do you have audio tricks or advice for GoAnimate, or for eLearning in general? We would love to share your thoughts below as comments.

 

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Looking to become a GoAnimate or Adobe Captivate ninja? We've got you covered with these awesome live, online classes.

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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.

 

 

MICROSOFT POWERPOINT: Adding Transparency to Photos

by AJ Walther, COTP

You have a plan... a plan to create an awesome PowerPoint presentation about, among other emotions, anger.

 

Naturally, you want to illustrate anger on one of the slides. Once you're done, it's possible that you'll take the presentation into Adobe Captivate or Articulate Storyline and create an epic eLearning course. But that's down the road. Let's get back to the plan at hand: anger.

 

Your plan is to show a truly upset human in varying states of anger. However, you've only got one photo you're allowed to use. Your plan needs to adapt, so you're thinking you'll simply duplicate the image a few times and then make each copy a bit more transparent than the previous one.

 

You want to do this: 

 

 

“But AJ, how’d you know I want to do that exact thing?” Friend, I just knew. 

 

The problem is—how? PowerPoint won’t allow you to adjust the transparency of a photo so you'll need to scrap that plan.

 

Don't get angry!

 

What you CAN do is adjust the transparency of a shape or other drawn object. Here’s how to get from Point A to Point B, including an extra bit to accommodate if your photo has a background you’d like removed.

 

Insert your photo onto your slide (Insert > Pictures).

 

 

With the photo selected on the slide, select the Picture Tools Format tab and click the Remove Background tool to remove the background as you see fit. 

 

 

When your photo is properly background-less, right-click and choose Copy (or press Ctrl-C on your keyboard).

 

Insert a shape (Insert > Shapes). For the image at the beginning of this article, I inserted a rectangle. It’s a good idea to “trace” your original image while drawing your shape to ensure it’s the correct size. 

 

Right-click the shape and choose Format Shape. From the Format Shape panel, ensure the Fill and Line tab (the paint can) is selected and open the Fill area.

 

Select Picture or Texture fill and from the Insert Picture From area, choose the Clipboard button. Note that when you choose Picture or Texture fill, the panel name changes from Format Shape to Format Picture.

 

 

Your shape will auto-fill with the last thing you copied: in this case, your background-less photo. 

 

From the Line area, choose No Line.

 

In the Fill area, note that you can now adjust the transparency of your picture-filled shape.

 

 

To achieve the effect in the photo below, I simply copied and pasted my picture-filled shape several times and adjusted the transparency on each duplicate.

 

 

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I'm teaching a couple of live, online, and highly interactive PowerPoint classes: PowerPoint for eLearning 101: You’re Doing it Wrong and PowerPoint for eLearning 201: Finding, Editing, and Creating Vector Graphics for eLearning Design, Come learn how to take your PowerPoint presentations to the stratosphere.

 

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AJ Walther, COTP, is IconLogic's Chief Creative Officer (CCO), a seasoned online trainer, eLearning graphic designer, and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials." AJ made her own interdisciplinary studies major, focusing on writing and art. Her combined expertise in PowerPoint, graphic design, and writing allows her to bring a unique skillset to the eLearning community.

 

ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Tips for Importing PowerPoint Slides

by Jennie Ruby, COTP

Many organizations use PowerPoint templates to ensure that lessons are consistent and correctly branded. By importing PowerPoint into Captivate, you can retain that formatting and branding in your eLearning lessons as well. But sometimes Captivate needs a little extra help in communicating with PowerPoint on your computer in order to import slides. Here are some tips.

 

1. Open your copy of PowerPoint, and open the file you want to import into Captivate.

 

2. Use Save As to re-save the file. This makes your copy of PowerPoint the last program to "touch" the file. (This helps prevent "permissions" errors.)

 

3. Close the file, but keep PowerPoint open, with no PowerPoint files open. Just the program.

 

4. In Captivate, from the Welcome Screen’s New tab, click From PowerPoint and click Create.

 

5. Select the PowerPoint file you earlier saved.

 

6. In the Convert Microsoft PowerPoint Presentations dialog box, select the specific slides you want to import.

 

7. To be able to update the slides in PowerPoint if needed and have them synchronize with the Captivate project, ensure that the Link checkbox is selected. Keep the other default settings (Advance slide on Mouse click).

 

Note: On Windows computers, you may want to select High Fidelity as well. This gives you higher quality images and may help with any PowerPoint animations, which, by the way, should work in Captivate.

 

 

8. Click OK.

 

The import process can take a while. If it truly freezes, you may need to close both programs and start again. But even if you have to do that, we have typically seen it work on the second try.

 

Once the PowerPoint deck is imported, it is listed in Captivate’s Library. A red or green dot appears next to the slides, letting you know whether they are synchronized with the original PowerPoint. If that dot is red, you can click it to update the slides in Captivate.

 

If you need to make a change to text or images on the slides, you’ll need to return to PowerPoint to do so. But Captivate makes this easy through the Edit > Edit with Microsoft PowerPoint command. You can choose to edit just one slide or the whole presentation. You are taken to PowerPoint, where you can make the needed edits. Then, on Windows computers, you can just hit the Save button at the upper left to save the changes and return to Captivate. On Mac computers, you just save the file in PowerPoint, re-open Captivate, and say yes to a dialog box to Update your Captivate slides.

 

Importing your PowerPoint slides can be the fastest route to a fully formatted, branded Captivate project. If you have any other tips on working with PowerPoint and Captivate, I would love to hear from you via comments below.

 

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Looking to become a Captivate master? We've got you covered with these awesome classes.

 

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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.

 

 

TECHSMITH CAMTASIA: TREC vs. AVI

by Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP

While recording a software demonstration using the Camtasia Recorder, you have two choices when it comes to the file format for your video capture: TREC and AVI. Audio Video Interleave (AVI) is a popular Microsoft format that can contain both video and audio. It plays nicely on multiple devices and operating systems. AVIs can be imported into the Camtasia Editor or other eLearning development tools and multimedia editors. TREC files are a proprietary format developed by TechSmith. As with AVI files, TRECs can contain audio and video and can be imported directly into the Camtasia Editor. However, unlike AVI files, TRECs cannot be edited or imported into any other development program (such as Adobe Captivate or Articulate Storyline).

 

Prior to recording, you can switch between the AVI format and TREC format by choosing Tools > Options. On the General tab, you’ll find both options in the Saving area, Record to drop-down menu.

 

 

Because AVIs are the more widely-accepted video format for non-Camtasia developers, it makes sense that you should choose AVI when using the Camtasia Recorder to create videos, right?

 

Not so fast.

 

If you create an AVI and then import it into the Camtasia Editor, you won’t be able to add effects to the recorded cursor. Beyond cursor data, the TREC format captures keyboard shortcuts, the webcam, and audio (all of which are editable once the TREC is imported into Camtasia).

 

In my experience, it’s best to always use the TREC format when recording with the Camtasia Recorder. Keep in mind that if you need an AVI at any point, you can select AVI when Sharing (Publishing).

 

 

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If you'd like to learn how to use the Camtasia Recorder to create awesome videos, check out this $49 Live, Online Camtasia Quick Dip class.

 

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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.