Creating Effective Evaluations That Are Tied To Learning Objectives
In this video I talk about how to make level 2 evaluations that are directly tied to your individual learning objectives using Adobe Captivate 8. The result for your learners are final quizzes that truly test a learners ability to demonstrate the competencies of the training.
More Advanced Actions in Adobe Captivate
In this video I show how you can hide navigation buttons until your users have completed a certain set of tasks, in this case visit four different tabbed pages. I use four variables and two different types of advanced actions.
Easy Principles of Adult Learning for Online Use
During my career I have seen the principles of adult learning expressed many different ways. I decided some time ago to write them out the way that I find them practical for my use. You don't have to agree with my interpretation of them, however I hope that you do. I've tried to express them in the simplest terms possible in the following points:
Adults are autonomous and self-directed. Adults should be given control over their learning. This can be achieved in online learning by offering a variety of methods to learn. I'm not talking about learning styles, but rather simply offering choices for your learners. For example, learners could have the choice of reading a passage, or watching a video on the same subject. Also avoid restrictions in even something as simple as navigation of the course materials. If the adult learner would like to learn about the third topic first, this flexibility should be allowed. Adult learners should be given something to do rather than just letting them listen to narration or read text on the screen. Eventually adult learners who are continuously being lectured to or even being forced to watch videos for a long period of time will tune out. Having adult learners complete a variety of activities, even when they don’t know the solutions yet, is far more engaging than simply listening or watching.
Adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and knowledge. Adults should be allowed and encouraged to reflect on their own knowledge and experience. Trial and error type exercises will help adult learners to tap into their intuition and experience, even if they have to guess at the correct answers. This keeps the training active and keeps the learners involved. When adult learners get the answer wrong, the course design should use the opportunity to turn feedback into a teaching point, rather than just stating their answer is incorrect. Case studies and scenario based activities are a great way to do this.
Adults are goal oriented. Online courses should be organized and have clearly stated objectives. Knowing details like, how long the course will take, what topics will be covered and how the learners will be tested, help adult learners align the course to their own goals. Having clearly stated objectives that state the expected performance helps them stay motivated. They will see how the learning will be applied back on their workplace.
Adults are relevancy oriented. Adult learners need to see a reason for learning something. Early in the course a page should be dedicated to the benefits of the course. Isolate why the course is of benefit to the organization, but also what learners will get out of the course as well. If a benefit is provided that they can identify with, their motivation to successfully complete the training goes up.
Adults are practical. Online learning should be focused on what adult learners need to know back on the job. Any material that is outside the learning objectives should clearly be indicated as optional or even avoided. A method for learners to skip optional content should be made available. Adult learners may not be interested in knowledge for its own sake. Scenarios from their job should be used when possible so the relevancy is clear. If scenarios are not applicable to adult learners, they will lose motivation for the course.
Adults need to be shown respect. When writing for adult learners, a conversational style should be used as someone would speak to a colleague. The narration should never speak down to adult learners. Writers sometimes like to show off their knowledge of the English language. Obscure word usage should be avoided as it can come across as condescending. When creating exercises in training, the goal should be to create activities that test the learner’s knowledge and skill, not create activities that are tricky or test for something outside the course objectives.
Going Back in Time and Using Macromedia Captivate 1.01
In this video I decided to go back in time and attempt to use Macromedia Captivate 1.01, the first version of Captivate from 2004. I never did used this version of Captivate before. My first experience with this software was version 2 and then almost immediately version 3. There are things that I completely forgotten about and I was reminded of the older methods of doing certain things. For example, I was reminded that there wasn't really any property panels like there are today. Back then, you simply double clicked to bring up a sort of property window. Another item that I briefly looked for but didn't find was advanced actions. I can't imagine how you accomplished much without them, but I guess people did. Check out the video and enjoy.
Not Paying Attention in English Class
If you’re like me, you were a self-made instructional designer. When I should have been paying attention in English class I was instead planning my future as a rock star or something. I missed valuable lessons on writing. I found these great posters from theoutmeal.com that were excellent reminders of when and how to use many commonly misspelled and misused words. Check these out:
Adding Closed Captioning to Embedded Videos in Adobe Captivate
In this video I talk about how to add Closed Captioning to embedded videos within Adobe Captivate 8. Also I talk a little about why responsive design isn't always required or necessary. Thanks to my friend Robert for asking me about this.
Creating Responsive Design Interactions in Adobe Captivate 8
One challenge with Adobe Captivate is that there isn't a separate type of quiz question that is only to be used for knowledge checks. When I say knowledge checks, I mean the type of question that is there for the learner to simply test their knowledge up until that point. To me a knowledge check doesn’t interact with the course quiz in any way. This is difficult in Captivate. You can do surveys, but they don't give you the built in function for providing feedback. You can turn off the ability to have quiz questions contribute to the quiz but certain other issues arise as well.
Probably the best way to deal with this is to create your own interactions. In this video I use advanced actions (both kinds), user variables, all within a responsive design as well.
Adding Links to the End of Your Adobe Captivate Course - More Powerful Than You Think
In this video, I show you how you can add a link at the end of your course that automatically launches if the user successfully completes the training. Ok, you might be thinking 'so what?' Well the benefit is that depending on what you link to, you can add a level of interactivity to your training. This is espesially true if you are housing your eLearning course on something other than an LMS. For example, I house samples of my work on my Dropbox account. This way I can share my eLearning designs with stakeholders and subject matter experts without having an expensive LMS. Without an LMS though, you lose the ability to track your training results. Watch the video to see several examples of how I use this to overcome this problem.
I'd Like to Try Some eLearning Time Travel
It's really amazing what we take for granted. In this video 8 Photoshop experts attempt to use Photoshop 1.0. It is clear that we just expect certain things to be there. Clearly many of the features that we use today were introduced along the way.
I'd like to try this with Adobe Captivate. Actually before Captivate was called Captivate, it was Robodemo. It would be really interesting to see how I could manage. My first version of Captivate was version 2.0. One thing I can attest to is that rapid development exists today in Captivate 8 whereas in version 2.0, I had a painstakingly slow process to develop any courseware. I think I will try to trackdown an early version of Cp and see how I manage.
Creating Custom Workpaces in Adobe Captivate
One thing that many new users of Adobe Captivate discover is that turning on various toolbars and panels isn't persistent in Captivate 8. In this video I teach fellow Instructional Designers how they can correct this and have all their favourite toolbars and panels.