The Logical Blog by IconLogic

eLearning: Become a Pedagogical Agent

by Jennie Ruby 

If you've taken any of our Adobe Captivate, Adobe Presenter, or Articulate Storyline classes, you are probably aware that these programs provide a selection of screen characters--cut-out pictures of professional actors in business, medical, or business-casual clothing posed as if they are talking to you. They are intended for use as a kind of avatar of the trainer.

There is research that shows that using a screen character as a pedagogical agent or learning coach, who speaks informally and appears to be giving the lesson, increases learning. (My reference for this is Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer, eLearning and the Science of Instruction.)

Over the past few weeks, I've had multiple students ask how hard it would be to use themselves as the learning coach. Believe it or not, becoming a pedagogical agent is easier than you think.

 

Put Your Picture into the Lesson. Place a professional head shot of yourself, your trainer, or expert on the introductory slide (including job title, credentials, etc.), and then have that individual record the audio narration for the project.

 

Create your own screen characters. Photograph your expert on a green screen background for a full set of screen characters in various poses. The IconLogic Blog has a whole series of articles on how to do this:

 

Green Screen Part I

Green Screen Part II

Green Screen Part III

Green Screen Part IV

 

Create cartoons of yourself or your in-house experts. You can use the images over and over in on-going training videos. Here is one article to get you started: Using Bitstrips Characters.

If you don't have specific, known individuals in your company to act as your learning coaches, you are not stuck with the same four or five actors that come with your software. You can purchase additional screen characters from The eLearning Brothers. Or you can just make good use of some inexpensive clip art. By trimming out the background in ordinary office photographs, you can get some nice effects.

 

Whether you use generic actors or your own home-grown experts, screen characters are an excellent way to add the personalization, engagement, and local feel that will bring your eLearning to the next level.

 

Once you have your screen characters, how do you know what to make them say? Join me for an afternoon mini course on writing voiceovers to find out.

Adobe Presenter Video Express: Creating Software Demos

by Jennie Ruby

If you've tried Adobe Presenter with Video Express, you are probably aware that you can create a video of yourself as you present your PowerPoint slides, and then display either yourself, your slides, or both in the published project. However, a well-kept secret is that Video Express actually enables you to take a simultaneous video of yourself and anything you have on your computer screen--it doesn't have to be PowerPoint slides.

Here's an example: I needed to show a few different functions in Word 2013. I'm creating an update lesson, not a full how-to video. I want to be able to list the changes in 2013 from the 2010 version of the software, and show just a quick mini-vid of things that have been changed.

First, I turn on Video Express independently of PowerPoint and Presenter. (On my Windows 8 touch-screen machine, I went to the Start screen and tapped the Video Express icon. You can start your copy of Video Express just as you would start any application.)

Next I created a script (you can't do anything without a step-by-step script, and possibly a voiceover script to go with it), and opened my target application, Word 2013, in maximized view. Video Express is automatically set to capture the entire screen.

From the task bar, I retrieve Video Express, and hit the Create New Project button.



I ignore the fact that my video camera is now showing my face--I'm not going to display that aspect of the video in my end product. No need for lighting, makeup, etc. on this one!

I click the Record button.



Video Express disappears, a count-down from 5 to 1 rolls, and consulting my script, I take a live video of some screen actions, narrating as I go.

When I've finished the steps, I hit the stop recording short-cut key combo, Shift-End.

My video opens in Editing view.

At the bottom of the screen, I click the Presentation Only tool.



Now the published output will display only the screen actions, and not my face, but my audio narration will play throughout.

Since the video was shot with Word maximized, I click the Pan & Zoom tool at a crucial point along the timeline.



Then I adjust the Pan and Zoom to focus on the part of the screen that is of interest.



Later along the timeline, I could choose to zoom back out, but that is not needed for my project.

Finished with editing, I go to the lower right corner of the Editing screen, and click Publish.



From the options displayed, I choose Export to PowerPoint. I've decided to create a slide show of the Microsoft Word updates, with a mini-video of each change.



After some processing, PowerPoint opens with my inserted video ready to go on a new slide. I'll add an intro slide and explanatory slides along with additional slides showing my other mini-videos.

Now I can save my project, then use Adobe Presenter to publish it as one continuous movie, with my embedded videos playing automatically in between explanatory slides. Sweet!

So okay, I did end up using PowerPoint and Adobe Presenter along with Video Express after all, but that combo was just what I needed for this hybrid project.

Want more on Video Express? Sign up for my Video Express mini course for just $79, and you'll be ready to make expert videos after just one afternoon session!