Need Some Images For Your eLearning?

There have been other free photography sites, but I can assure that I've not seen anything like this before. Sometimes a site will offer free downloads but when it came time to using those images you still needed to purchase a license. Alternatively, there are other sites that offer free downloads, but you need to attribute the original photographer a specific way. Of course, I'm okay with everyone getting the attribution they deserve, but my clients don't want some fine print at the bottom of each slide of their eLearning course.

Check out https://pikwizard.com/ when you get a chance. They're just starting out, but they already have over 100,000 completely free images, of which 20,000 are exclusive to them. They are updating their library of stock photos daily and have expressed to me that their goal is to have more than 1 million images.

One thing that is rare are free sites that include pictures of people. You see models are required to sign a release and it's difficult for photographers and photo sites to get photos of people for free distribution. Pikwizard.com has a lot of pictures of people. Check this out for yourself by searching their site for things like "office" or "meeting", and you'll find some great quality examples of these types of photos.

I asked Micheal Brennan from Pikwizard.com how can all these files be truly free? 

Micheal explained that the photos on the site have two different licenses. 

The first is Creative Commons Universal. Pik Wizard doesn't own the images but the people who do have waived the copyright and allowed the use of the photos. You can learn more about this type of license here: https://pikwizard.com/cc0-license. 

The other license is where Pik Wizard owns the images but made them free to use without attribution. They still retain the copyright. You can learn about this type of license here: https://pikwizard.com/free-license.

Michael went on to explain that there are certain cases where an image can't be used, but in 99% of the cases, you will be free to use these photos for free without attribution. Each image will have an explanation on its page that covers these sorts of details.

Hope you find this useful.

The Best Deal in eLearning Conferences

When I participate in these sorts of events we call them speaking engagements, and that's certainly part of it. I like to think about this as really an instructor-led classroom session. My YouTube tutorials are often five to ten minutes of instruction, but what I do at the Adobe Live Events is a full hour of demonstration (I don't use PowerPoint). What you will see from me is one hour of me demonstrating how to do a bunch of things in Adobe Captivate.

This year my topic is Getting Started with Adobe Captivate (2017 Release). If you are new to eLearning, new to Captivate, or just new to this release, I will be showing you how you can quickly develop eLearning that works across a variety of different device types, and how easy it is to setup your eLearning to have a unique look and feel. While other developers will be messing around with their first eLearning modules, attending my session will help you rapidly pump out content for your organization. Or, if you are a learning and development manager, I will show you how your design and development team can rapidly get your organization trained up on what they need to know and do.

I refer to the Adobe eLearning Conference in Washington D.C. as the best deal in eLearning conferences and I mean it. Other conferences will cost you or your organization hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to just register, Adobe offers this event completely for free. All you need to do is convince your manager or director to foot the bill for your transportation and lodging.  Still not convinced? Well, breakfast and lunch are included as well.

2018 Adobe eLearning Conference - View

Attendees will get updates and insights that will put you ahead of the curve, connect you with experienced members of the community and do wonders for your network, and allow you to be an active participant in the community that is at the forefront of eLearning creation, delivery, and management.

Adobe Captivate - Advanced Answer Option Using Fluid Boxes

In this Adobe Captivate 2017 video tutorial, I show you how you can use the advanced answer option with fluid boxes.

Publishing Non-responsive eLearning for Mobile

When you publish non-responsive projects like the one you have here, it will display at the resolution you set it for when you created it. This is fine for desktop computers but if someone was going to view it on a tablet or smartphone it will mean they will have to scroll around the page to see all your content.

The solution is, when you publish check off Scalable HTML content. See the screen shot below.
 

Publish To My Computer Window

This will resize your eLearning to fit within the browser viewport of whatever device you are viewing. Of course there are several drawbacks.

1. Text might get very small on the screen
2. Since your eLearning project uses a fixed aspect ratio, the users might see some black bars above and below or on either side of your stage.

To help with the first point, I would recommend that you test it out on a typical device and up the font size where necessary. It might be too large when viewed on a computer but might be just right on a smartphone or tablet.

Now for item 2, you can select the colour of the area around your stage. It’s located on the same screen where you selected the border around your project (Shift+F11). See below.

Adobe Captivate - Custom Start for Mobile

Working with stakeholders can sometimes get challenging when you need to educate and set their expectations with regards to the norms that most of us take for granted. One example of this is the fact that mobile OS platforms don't allow for the auto-playing of content on the web. Unfortunately, this includes eLearning. What this means to you and I is that when you publish an eLearning course for the web and access it via a mobile device, learners will need to click an extra play button to get started. In this Adobe Captivate Quick Tip, I show you how you can customize the start project screen when publishing for mobile devices to at least make this a little more interesting to look at.

Default Currency

My website and ecommerce supplier allows for one currency for my clients. It's always made sense for me to bill in Canadian dollars since I myself operate my business from Canada. I've decided to change this starting with 2018. I've realized that the vast majority of my clients are from the United States. Since I've always believed in providing for my clients the service that I myself would expect, I've switched my default currency to US dollars.

This means that my hourly rate will change. Previously I charged $130 CAD per hour for my services. As of today, my hourly rate will change to $100 USD per hour.

Other items in my eCommerce site will remain the same, however, as a courtesy, I will be offering a 50% discount on all other items for the month of January, but you must use coupon code F6YW8GI to get it.

Adobe Captivate Alignment Toolbar

The Adobe Captivate Alignment Toolbar

I'm always looking for shortcuts in online learning design. One of my favourites is the Adobe Captivate Alignment Toolbar. To use for each session you will need to check Enable custom workspaces/panel undocking in your Adobe Captivate Preferences. This option can be found in the General Settings Category.

As the entry suggests you will need to restart Adobe Captivate for the changes to take effect, but the advantage is that you will be able to permanently turn various toolbars on or off as you see fit. Those changes will be persistent each time you start Captivate. You can then turn on the Adobe Captivate Alignment Toolbar by selecting it from the Window drop-down menu.

Once the Alignment Toolbar appears in your Captivate interface you can save time aligning, resizing, and ordering your on-slide objects with ease. Sure you can right click your objects and select the same settings, however, this requires two mouse clicks. Having the toolbar up on your screen saves you a mouse click for each of these alignment adjustments. Over the course of a lifetime of Captivate projects, the toolbar will save you time and many clicks.

Here is a simple and FREE job aid on what each icon from the toolbar can do for you. 

Provide Different Feedback for Each Answer in Adobe Captivate

In this Adobe Captivate video tutorial, I will share with you an almost hidden feature known as Advanced Answer Option. It's related to multiple choice single answer quiz questions but the feature isn't found in the Quiz Properties. Instead, you can find this feature in the Properties Panel for your multiple choice answers themselves. It's useful if you want to create unique feedback captions for each answer, but you can also assign unique actions to each answer as well. You can use Advanced Answer Options to create branching scenarios or simply use them to provide remediation for your knowledge check or quiz question slides. 

What Resolution Should I Use

From time to time I get this question about what resolution and for that matter, what aspect ratio should eLearning designers choose for their eLearning project. My expectation is that designers are hoping for a single super answer that will be applicable to all eLearning projects from now and into the future. The reality of the situation is there is no one single answer, however, I think I can offer some insight into this. 

When I begin an elearning project for a client, I start with a needs analysis. Included in that needs analysis is a technical needs analysis. For example, if everyone in the organization uses their desktop computer to complete their training and the stakeholder doesn't expect that to change any time soon, you should focus on a solution that is optimized for a desktop computer. If all their employees use iPhone 8 Pluses, then design for that size.

In this video tutorial, I show you an easy way to determine exactly what resolution you need to target for when designing for a particular device.

Using Javascript to Display Google Fonts in Adobe Captivate

In this video tutorial, I show you a method first conceived of by Steven Warwick. Steven shared his findings with the Adobe Elearning Community with a blog post entitled Using web fonts in Adobe Captivate. I reached out to Steven and asked his permission to share his method with all of you. 

Steven's original blog post:

https://elearning.adobe.com/2017/03/using-custom-fonts-in-adobe-captivate/

Steven's website:

https://www.elearningocean.com/

Steven's Twitter:

https://twitter.com/hdecisions