Adobe Presenter, one of the key rapid authoring tools in the Adobe eLearning suite, will be releasing an important product update in the next few weeks. Paresh Kharya, the PM for Adobe Presenter, has covered some of the key highlights of this release in his post on the Connect User Forum.

Couple of key feature enhancements that I’m very excited about in this update are:

• Improved PowerPoint Conversion and PPTX format support: This update would include support for various PowerPoint SmartArt Animations. It would now be possible to work with and synchronize PowerPoint SmartArt animations. This release would include enhancements for improving the flash conversion fidelity of embedded images in PowerPoint. The release would also enhance the conversion fidelity for various text and shape effects created in PPTX format. Resolved issues where alternative text inserted using PowerPoint was not being exposed to screen readers. Based on what I’ve seen, the PPT conversion capability with this update will whip the other presenters out there.
• Tighter integration of Captivate Content in Presenter: We have enhanced the support for embedding Captivate created flash content in Presenter presentations. Captivate content having full motion recordings would now play properly without the need to manually copy the Captivate output files to Presenter data folder. We have also fixed issues related to loss of display fidelity when Captivate content would sometimes get imported with incorrect dimensions.
  

adobe presenter,adobe elearning suite,powerpoint to swf conversion

Posted by Shameer Ayyappan at 7:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A typical scenario for creating an elearning course with Captivate is to create multiple 5-10 min modules of Captivate movies that are integrated using the aggregator or the multi-sco packager or by creating your own navigation shell using Flash Pro. Today, I’ll show you another option that is available for creating a course with multiple modules.

The Adobe eLearning Suite integrates Adobe Captivate and Adobe Acrobat Pro to help you create a PDF portfolio containing your Captivate movies, complete with rich navigation. You can easily publish these n the web or distribute it via email. Your learners just need the free Adobe Reader on their computers to view this content. One note of caution: If your content contains assessments or significant interactivity, then this is not the best mode to publish in. 

Here’s an example of how you can achieve this. We will create an E-Learning course to teach ‘alphabets’, ‘numbers’ and ‘shapes’ to kids. So instead of creating a single Captivate project containing all the content, it will be broken down into smaller modules. Start by creating a Captivate project on ‘alphabets’ and publish it as a PDF. This option is available in the Publish dialog.

Just check the box which says 'export PDF' and publish the project. In the published folder, you will now get a PDF file which contains the embedded Captivate SWF.

Continue reading "Captivate - Acrobat Integration" »

Posted by Mukul Vinay Lele at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Adobe Soundbooth and Adobe Captivate are tightly integrated in the new Adobe eLearning Suite.

We already know that Captivate audio can be edited using Adobe Soundbooth but now it comes with new enhanced functionality. Now developers can actually edit multiple audio files inside Soundbooth and bring all the changes inside Captivate with just one click.

Consider a user working on a 10 slide Captivate project. He has three audio files in library which he uses on slide 3, 4 and 5 respectively. Now what if user wishes to edit audio on all three slides using Soundbooth?

He can just select multiple audio files and select “edit with Soundbooth”. Then all the audio files are made available in the Soundbooth ‘Files’ panel. User can then select each file and edit it one at a time. Once it is done, he simply needs to click ‘save all’ and that’s it!

All the audio edits are saved and reflected both in the Captivate library and on the associated slides where these audio files were being used. Thus just with one click, users can now save all the edited audio from Soundbooth back into Captivate, without loosing the slide associations.

Please see a demo of the same scenario here

Do try out this productivity enhancing functionality and let us know your experience with it.

 

Soundbooth Captivate integration,edit multiple audio files,E-Learning Suite

Posted by Mukul Vinay Lele at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

articulate engage,adobe captivate,migration,reuse elearning content,adobe elearning suite

In previous posts we have seen how we can reuse Articulate Presenter files by converting it to Adobe Presenter files. Adobe presenter is a part of Adobe eLearning suite. In this post we will see how you can use existing Articulate Engage or Quizmaker output files inside Adobe Captivate 4 project.

The rule is “Adobe Captivate movie plays the engage movie as long as engage movie can find the dependent files as it is expecting. Publishing as external files and copying the dependent files to same folder helps maintain this rule”.

Both of these Articulate products namely Engage and Quizmaker creates output files in such a way that there is a main file - let us say “engage.swf” - and a directory where all the dependent files are kept. The trick to use them inside Adobe Captivate 4 is to insert the “engage.swf” as animation and publish them as external files and copy the engage dependent files to the same place as “engage.swf”.

Below are the steps you can follow to import the articulate files to Adobe Captivate 4

1. Open a blank file in Adobe Captivate 4
2. Select Insert->Animation and select “engage.swf”.
3. Say OK to the animation dialog.
4. Select Edit->Preferences -> Project -> Publish Settings – Check “Animations” so that animations are externalized or they are published as a separate file.
5. Say OK to the dialog.
6. Publish the Captivate project to a swf. Let us say “CaptivateArticulateEngage.swf”
7. Notice you will get “engage.swf” alongwith “CaptivateArticulateEngage.swf” in the published folder.
8. Now you have to make a structure similar in relation to “engage.swf”. So either copy the dependent folder and files of engage here or to make matters simple copy captivate published file to the same place where the original engage file exists on your computer.

Click here or the image below to see a Adobe Captivate 4 demo on how to do it.

Posted by Rajeev Kumar at 6:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

adobe eLearning suite and articulate presenter,migrating old eLearning projects

Adobe eLearning suite consists of a set of products along with Adobe Captivate 4 and Adobe Presenter 7 using which you can create any kind of eLearning courses. With this you will not need any other eLearning tool in your arsenal. But when organizations decide to switch to a new product their foremost worry could be about existing content they have created using other tools. Well you need not worry about losing them. You can still use them inside Adobe Captivate and other products in eLearning suite.

For example - Files created in Articulate® Presenter can be opened and edited in Adobe Presenter. The original Articulate presentation is never modified; a copy of the presentation is converted and opened in Adobe Presenter. The Articulate assets folder should be available along with the Articulate presentation file. Without the asset folder and its contents, Articulate features cannot be imported into the presentation when it is opened in Adobe Presenter.

Adobe Presenter supports most Articulate Presenter data, including Flash, audio, and quiz information (as long as the Articulate Presenter assets folder is available).

What is not supported –

1. The following Articulate Presenter features are not supported: Learning Games, Engage Interactions, Insert Web Object.
2. Adobe Presenter does not support all Articulate Presenter question types. Unsupported questions are not imported during the conversion process. A detailed log report (ConversionLog.log) is generated at the end of the conversion process and provides details about the conversion, including an dropped questions.”

For complete details visit Adobe Presenter 7 help files. This is how you can do it -

In PowerPoint, open a presentation (PPT or PPTX file) created in Articulate Presenter.

1. In the conversion dialog box, click Yes.
2. Choose a name and save location for the converted presentation.
3. (Optional) To view information in the conversion log file, click View Log. (You can also use Windows Explorer at any time to view thelog file. Navigate to the location you specified in step 3, right-click the ConversionLog.log file, and select Open with > Notepad.)
4. After the conversion process finishes, click Close.
5. In Adobe Presenter, edit the new, converted file and add Adobe Presenter features as desired.

Click here or on the image below to see how to do it.It will open up Adobe Captivate 4 generated file.

Next post – We will see how you can use output files of Articulate inside Adobe Captivate 4.

Posted by Rajeev Kumar at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

E-Learning,eLearning Suite,CourseBuilder,Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Extension

New CourseBuilder Features in Adobe Dreamweaver CS4

                  The CourseBuilder extension for Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 allows users to create Web-based learning interactions in a visual authoring environment. The CourseBuilder extension includes a set of easy to use templates and tools that simplify and accelerate the development of online learning content. Learning interactions created with the extension are 100% Web-native, enabling cross-platform and cross-browser delivery without plug-ins or applets.

                  The new CourseBuilder that ships with Adobe eLearning Suite is loaded with a set of new features like Compatibility with latest browsers, SCORM compatibility, new look and feel etc. This post will provide a snapshot of all the new features embedded in the new CourseBuilder.

New Features

• New Interactions

        The new version of course builder has 3 new interaction types. They are Matching interaction (includes Combo Box and Drag and Drop), Sequence interaction and Likert Interaction.

1. Matching Interaction.

CourseBuilder matching interactions require users to match a set of question statements with their answers. Although multiple questions can have the same answer, each question can have only one answer.

Use the matching interaction to have students demonstrate their understanding of concepts, terms, and complex relationships between objects. For examples, students can match cities with their countries. More than one city may belong to the same country, but each city can belong to only one country.

CourseBuilder provides two ways to implement matching interactions:

Students can drag and drop questions onto their correct answers.

Students can use combo boxes to select the correct answer for a question.

   

   2. Sequence Interaction.

CourseBuilder sequence interactions require the learner to identify the logical order for the members of a list. For example, learners may be required to decide the correct order of phrases in a jumbled sentence. Students use pop-up menus to indicate the correct order of the members of the list.

Consider the following jumbled sentence for example:

[in the solar system][the largest planet] [Jupiter is].

Learners can reorder the three phrases in their correct order:

[Jupiter is][the largest planet][in the solar system].

 

    3. Likert Interaction.

CourseBuilder Likert interactions require users to indicate their level of agreement with the statements presented.

Users can select one of the following options to respond to CourseBuilder Likert questionnaires:

1	Disagree.
2	Somewhat Disagree.
3	Somewhat Agree.
4	Agree.

Likert interactions find extensive use in Psychometric assessment.

 

• Compatibility with Latest Browsers

All the CourseBuilder interactions both new and old work in latest browsers like Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox 2 and Mozilla Firefox 3.

 

• SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 tracking Compatibility

        All the interactions  support SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 along with AICC; the user can make his selection using the “Tracking” tab. Appropriate actions are to be selected in the “Action Manager”  for successful tracking of interactions.

Enable LMS tracking

On the General page, enable Knowledge Track.   The Tracking tab appears.

On the Tracking page, specify the Interaction ID, Objective ID, and the LMS Standard.

Click OK to apply changes made to the interaction.

 

• New look and feel of CourseBuilder Wizard

        All the interactions are provided with a new set of images which can be seen on invoking Course Builder. For ex: Drag and drop interaction type has new “Drag” elements and “Drop” elements. The Tabs are moved to the top of the wizard thus removing the scroll bars from the previous version of Course Builder.

 

• Setting up the Tracking

Here is a simple procedure to enable tracking for Interactions on AICC, SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004.

Set AICC- trackable information for an interaction on one Page.

Create an HTML page with an interaction.

Add the following functions on the Action Mgr page.

• Send Objective Info

• Send Score

• Send Lesson Status

• Send Lesson Time

Add the course structure files and create a zip file with the folder contents.

 

Set SCORM 1.2-trackable information for an interaction on one page.

 Create an HTML page with an interaction.

 Add the following functions on the Action Mgr page:

• Send Objective Info

• Send Score

• Send Lesson Status

• Send Lesson Time

 Add the manifest files and create a zip file with the folder contents.

 

Set SCORM 2.0-trackable information for an interaction on one page.

Create an HTML page with an interaction.

 Add the following functions on the Action Mgr page:

• Send Core Data

• Send Lesson Status

• Send Completion Status

Add the manifest files and create a zip file with the folder contents.

 

 

 

 

Posted by Mukul Vinay Lele at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Adobe eLearning Suite,Adobe Captivate 4,Rapid eLearning

Today we announced the launch of Captivate 4 and the new Adobe eLearning Suite. While the sneak peaks at the Adobe Learning Summit and the eLearning Guild conference last November generated significant buzz around this big release, I truly believe we have two solid products that we can be bullish about. Close to 50 engineers worked for 18 months to build this product. This was beta tested for close to a year by more than 700 of your peers in the eLearning community.

The core focus of the two products is to drive productivity and efficiency in eLearning content authoring. Irrespective of wether you are involved in authoring rapid eLearning content, or comprehensive courseware, these products will meet your complete authoring needs. Captivate and Adobe Presenter form the anchor products for rapid eLearning. The integration between these products and the asset creation tools in the suite will help you generate richer eLearning content in a rapid authoring framework. Check out this video introducing the rapid authoring workflow in the eLearning Suite:

The eLearning Suite also contains enhanced versions of Flash Professional CS4 and Dreamweaver CS4- with specific eLearning extensions. These products form the anchor products for traditional courseware authoring. Shared tools like the SCORM Packager and the LMS adapter help streamline eLearning content creation using these powerful tools. Check out this video introducing the traditional authoring workflow in the eLearning suite:

For a more comprehensive introduction to the Adobe eLearning suite, check out this video RJ created.

In the next few days, to support the community in using these two products, we are converting this site to our team blog. We will discuss our personal favorites among this large set of features, and ways (not all documented) in which the community can maximize its benefits from the same. We hope this blog will provide a window for the large Captivate community to interact directly with the development team.

Posted by Shameer Ayyappan at 2:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rapid eLearning,Traditional eLearning,Adobe Captivate,Adobe Presenter,Flash Professional

eLearning can be classified into Rapid and Traditional eLearning. The two are distinguished by multiple facets including- the intended objective, turnaround time and shelf-life. This, to a great extent determines the time and effort an author will spend on creating this content.

Rapid eLearning methodologies are best employed for projects that contain frequently updated, time-sensitive content. While the turnaround time for Rapid eLearning projects are a couple of weeks, traditional eLearning projects can take a few months to develop. Projects that require extensive simulations, or focus on soft skills or behavior modification are good candidates for traditional eLearning.

Below is a snapshot of the tools that would be used in the Rapid Authoring workflow. Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter would be the primary tools used to author and aggregate content.

Authors make use of pre-existing templates to create instructionaly sound content rapidly. When required, authors can leverage the asset creation tools like Photoshop and Flash Professional to enhance or customize stock content. The final content can be published using Captivate onto any SCORM or AICC compliant LMS or to Adobe Connect Pro.

A snapshot of the tools that would be used in the Traditional Authoring workflow are shown below. Flash Professional is the primary tool used for authoring and aggregating content in this scenario.

Authors can use Photoshop to edit graphics, Captivate to create assessments and capture applications, and Soundbooth to edit audio. The Flash Learning Interactions and Dreamweaver's Coursebuilder extension can be used to expedite the eLearning content creation process when working with these tools.

Posted by Shameer Ayyappan at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)