Adobe Learning Summit 2024

This morning, I visited the Adobe Learning Summit 2023 website to look up something about last year's Adobe Learning conference. To my surprise, I discovered that the website has been revamped for the upcoming Adobe Learning Summit 2024, set to take place at the prestigious Resorts World, Las Vegas, on October 2 and 3.

I'm excited about the location. The Adobe Learning Summit has been held at the Mirage, The MGM Grand, and the Old Hard Rock Hotel (now Virgin Hotels Las Vegas). These are all older and somewhat tired Las Vegas resorts showing their age. Most of the conferences I've attended were at the Mirage, which looks impressive when you walk in, but by the time you get to your room, you see the resort's age.

Resorts World Las Vegas is different from your average Vegas hotel. Opened in 2021, Resorts World is the glitziest new addition to the Strip, boasting a whopping $4.3 billion price tag. It's all about luxury – spacious rooms, high-end shopping, and a world-class spa. If this conference will be your first Learning and Development Las Vegas Conference, Resorts World will combine extravagance and top-notch hospitality.

Check out the Adobe Learning Summit and Resorts World websites to learn about the conference and location.

https://adobe-learning-summit.elearning.adobeevents.com/

https://www.rwlasvegas.com/

The first year I attended the Adobe Learning Summit was in 2016. Adobe held the conference at the MGM Grand. At the time, it was a co-located event with DEVLEARN. Today, Adobe Learning Summit is an entirely independent conference. DEVLEARN, while a much larger event, tends to cater to other eLearning platforms and services, and there are seldom Adobe Captivate-specific sessions for people like you and me. If you are an Adobe Captivate designer or developer, the Adobe Learning Summit is the conference you want to attend.

The website needs more details on the conference at this time. However, you can expect Adobe to update the site occasionally as we get closer to the event. There is usually a fee for this conference, as Adobe is holding it at a Las Vegas hotel. Similar conferences can charge over USD 1,000 for registration. While there will undoubtedly be a special rate for the hotel for conference attendees, traditionally, the Adobe Learning Summits conference fees are reasonable. I would expect around USD 500. However, they often make early-bird pricing available during the summer, where you can save $100 or more.

If it interests you, I would discuss this conference with your supervisor or manager. Sometimes, convincing your boss to send you to Las Vegas can be an uphill battle, but your best bet is to prepare an email now focusing on your organization's benefits. Here is a sample I created with the help of AI:

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Dear [Manager Name],

I am writing to express my strong interest in attending the upcoming Adobe Learning Summit in Las Vegas, which is scheduled for October 2nd and 3rd.

Staying at the forefront of learning and development (L&D) trends and technologies is crucial for our team's success. The Adobe Learning Summit offers a unique opportunity to:

• Gain in-depth knowledge of the latest version of Adobe Captivate: I am particularly interested in learning more about creating custom interactions. This knowledge will allow me to Optimize our current L&D workflows and create more engaging and effective learning experiences for our employees.

  1. Explore new possibilities for using Adobe tools to address emerging training needs within the company.

  2. Learn from industry experts: The summit features sessions led by leading L&D professionals and Adobe product specialists. This will allow me to Gain valuable insights on best practices in eLearning design and development.

  3. Discover innovative approaches to address current L&D challenges faced by our department.

  4. Network with peers: The summit provides a platform to connect with other L&D professionals from various industries. This will allow me to Exchange ideas and best practices that can be applied to our L&D programs.

  5. Explore potential collaborations that could further enhance our training initiatives.

The knowledge and connections gained at the summit will significantly benefit our L&D department. Upon my return, I am committed to sharing what I have learned with the team and developing a comprehensive report outlining key takeaways and actionable insights.

I am happy to discuss flexible work arrangements during the summit dates to ensure minimal disruption to our workflow.

Thank you for considering my request. I am available to discuss this further at your convenience.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

L&D Specialist

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I will be throwing my hat in the ring to present a session on the All New Adobe Captivate. I'm working on a longer-form presentation on Accessibility that I might use for this conference. Often, Adobe asks me to present a particular topic. Many speakers at the conference are usually software users, just like you and me. There are other benefits to being a speaker. Most notably, you can attend the conference for free. Also, Adobe holds a pre-conference dinner for attendees the night before the first day. If you are interested in presenting a session, you can fill out the form  on this page, and perhaps I will see you in the "green room." 

https://adobe-learning-summit.elearning.adobeevents.com/speaker-application/

DevLearn 2021 Session — Making eLearning Magic with Adobe Captivate

I wanted to provide all of you with a quick summary of what to expect from me at the upcoming DevLearn conference to be held in Las Vegas.

I’ve heard the complaints. 2019 was two years ago. When are we getting a new version of Adobe Captivate? Actually, it came out in the summer of 2018 so it’s actually over three years old. Yes, there have been half a dozen or so updates to the software over those years in service, but eLearning authors like you and me want something that looks brand new. We want our training to be cool and sexy. We want to look like eLearning rockstars.

Rock Star

There are these interactions we all know how to build in Adobe Captivate 2019. You have a click to reveal where you click a smart shape used as a button and your course displays some supplemental content. You also know how to build a content carousel that cycles through information on screen. Of course we have the in-built question slides that haven’t been updated since…well, since forever. We want to engage our learners but some of these interactions are pretty drab.

In this session, you’ll learn how to take your Adobe Captivate interactions from drab to fab. We’ll start with learning how you can improve your click to reveal interactions to make them look like 3-D flip cards. You’ll also learn how to create a content carousel that presents content to your learners using a cool animated effect. Next, you’ll discover how to build an information wheel that works off a single click to progress through the information. Lastly, you’ll find out how to build a knowledge check slide that doesn’t use the in-built question slides that learners have seen a thousand times before. You’ll leave this session with new tools to put in your eLearning toolbelt that will make your eLearning look like magic.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to track your learner’s progress through interactions using Adobe Captivate variables

• How to write advanced actions that include a variety of actions that when combined create interactions that are truly engaging

• How to use effects in your advanced actions that will make your eLearning appear like magic

• How you can repurpose what you’ve learned in this session into your new eLearning projects in seconds instead of hours, and look like an eLearning superstar

My session is on October 20th from 3 PM to 4 PM. It’s marked as a BYOD session but you don’t have to work on these exercise files I will be providing free of charge during the session. You will get a template along with a completed version of the project file to take with you and easily use in your own projects right away.

But you can’t get this material unless you register and attend.

My Session for DevLearn DDX 2020

My session for the upcoming DevLearn conference has changed in format a little since I was originally invited but one thing that hasn’t changed is the learning outcomes you’ll get from attending my session. My session is now a pre-recorded on-demand session that will be available to participants on October 23rd, 2020 at 12:00 PM PST. The session is titled Developing Customized, Advanced Interactions in Captivate. You’ll learn how to build several custom interactions in Captivate that will show off your newly found advanced actions, conditional actions, and shared actions skills. Not only will you have the skills to build advanced interactions but you’ll also learn how you can replicate these interactions quickly and easily and then customize them further for different uses.

You can learn more about my session and add my session to your calendar from the following link, but don’t forget to register if you want access to this on-demand session and so many more.

https://www.devlearn.com/speakers/paul-wilson

I'm Speaking at DEVLEARN

I wanted to let all my followers at CaptivateTeacher.com know that I’m speaking at DevLearn this year! I’ve called my session Developing Customized Advanced Interactions in Captivate. It will be on October 23rd at 10 AM, and its session number 911 (I hope that's a good number). It's going to be a BYOD session, but I plan to provide participants with project files that are almost ready to go.

How does this relate to all of you?

The audience for this session is all of us, eLearning designers, developers who use Adobe Captivate. Between now and then, I will be sharing more details about what I will be putting together with you. I'm curious as to how many of you are planning on attending DevLearn this year. Please let me know in the comments of this post. Depending on how many of you there are, perhaps we can organize some type of meetup or event. I'd love to meet as many of you as possible. After all, you are all my supporters, and I appreciate each one of you for showing your support. Here is my session description:

Developing Customized, Advanced Interactions in Captivate

We've all been there. You present your eLearning course to your stakeholder only to learn that they don't want the built-in interaction that comes with Adobe Captivate. Oh boy, this is going to increase your development time. Instead, imagine reaching into your advanced action tool belt and pulling out a ready-to-go interaction that you can make a few small changes to satisfy their needs. In this BYOD session, you'll learn how to build several custom interactions in Captivate that will show off your newly found advanced actions, conditional actions, and shared action skills. Not only will you have the skills to build advanced interactions, but you'll also learn how you can replicate these interactions quickly and easily and then customize them further for different uses.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to build a custom click-to-reveal that tracks what your learners have selected and shows completion of the activity

• How to build a multiple-choice, single answer question using variables and advanced actions that doesn't rely on Adobe Captivate's question slides

• How to build a multiple correct answer question using variables and advanced actions, again, that doesn't use the standard question slides.

• How to save these advanced actions as shared actions, making them quick and easy to replicate whenever you need a similar interaction

Adobe Learning Summit

The Adobe Learning Summit at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas Nevada is fast approaching and I’m really looking forward to it. The Adobe Learning Summit is held at the MGM Grand Conference Center, part of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. The Adobe Learning Summit is a concurrent event held alongside the eLearning Guilds DevLearn conference, which is also held at the MGM Grand hotel. If you want to go and haven’t already signed up you can do so here.

This is my first Adobe Learning Summit and only my second Adobe sponsored conference. The first was the Adobe eLearning Conference held in the spring of this year, in Washington D.C. At this conference, I will be conducting a session entitled Create mLearning in 60 Minutes where I will review the techniques for integrating location-based technology into your Adobe Captivate eLearning and specifically mLearning projects. I will be sharing many of my secrets for not only preparing for rapid development but also how to design with mobile in mind.

One of the advantages of being asked to conduct a session at Adobe Learning Summit is that I will get to enjoy all the event has to offer as well. There are four tracks that are occurring simultaneously throughout the day. There is the Design & Authoring track, which my session is a part of; the eLearning Strategy track, which focuses on strategies that make your eLearning projects effective; the Hands-on track, where participants get hands-on experience with the applications from Adobe; and lastly the Future of eLearning, which addresses more of the bleeding edge of where the technology is taking us. My session is only an hour long so I have to decide what to participate in for the remainder of the day. Of course, I would love to have the time to see everything, however, that would require that I clone myself or get everyone to agree to come to my house and present their sessions all over again.

In the morning there will be the usual stuff like registration, a little continental breakfast and a kickoff with some opening notes, however right after all that will be the Keynote from Dan Lyons who will speak about his learning from a year in start-up hell. This will be in the grand ballroom and I’m looking forward to learning from him. I myself am around the year and a half mark with my freelance business and I still have many questions that are presently unanswered. Perhaps I’ll get some insight.

After Dan Lyons will be a thirty-minute session on what’s new from Adobe. There are some rumours that we will learn about the next release of Adobe Captivate. I’m not sure if this is when we will learn those details but I will be there to gather as much information as I can.

From 10:00 AM until 11:00 I have a choice between Storyboarding Essentials for Better Course Design with Sarah Gilbert, Gamify the Learner Experience with Lucas Blair, or the Modern LMS: Smart, Simple, Self-service with Jesse Novak. Alternatively, if I’m willing to dedicate my whole morning to it, I could also join my friends Anita Horsley and Pooja Jaisingh for their hands-on session Get the Best out of Adobe Captivate. I can’t decide but you can bet you will see me in one of these sessions.

From 11:15 AM until lunch time I can also choose between Make the Best Use of Multimedia Assets with Andrew Scivally, Foster a Learning Culture with Allen Partridge, or Interactive Video Learning: The Next Big Thing with Steve Haskin. I have to admit that I’m most interested in how to foster a learning culture. I know this is something one of my previous employers struggled with and I know that Allen is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to this sort of thing, however, I’m very interested in the use of multi-media in learning so Andrew and Steve are giving Allen some stiff competition. I’m just not sure.

After lunch, I will obviously be in my own session on the previously mentioned techniques on mLearning but if this doesn’t interest you, I totally understand if you want to check out Learner Evaluation Strategies with Jane Bozarth, Microlearning: Small Bytes, Big Returns with Ray Jimenez. In addition, fellow Canadian Phil Cowcill, and one of my eLearning heroes Joe Ganci will be conducting a hands-on session called Build Custom Interactions Using Advanced Actions, Variables, and JavaScript, which promises to allow you to get your hands dirty (in a good way).

In the last set of sessions, you can also pick up some great skills from my friend Damien Bruyndonckx who will be conducting a session called Ten Design Hacks with Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Captivate. In addition, there will be a session called Putting Mobile at the Center of Your Learning Strategy with Robert Gadd, and once again my friend Pooja Jaisingh will be addressing shrinking attention spans in her session.

We will all regroup in the Grand Ballroom at the Conference Center and hear once again from Allen Partridge with a tech sneak peek. It’s my guess that this is when we might learn something about the next version of Adobe Captivate. Followed by a closing session, likely with more people from the Adobe eLearning team. My guess is this is where you may get some time for questions and answers.

I’m really looking forward to getting together with all my Adobe Captivate friends and making some new friends. I hope to see you all there.

The Adobe Learning Summit / DevLearn

I must be drunk. I've known about the fact that I'm conducting a session at the Adobe Learning Summit, for some time now, and I haven't posted anything about my attendance there. The Adobe Learning Summit is co-located with DevLearn.

Anyway, here are the details of this event.

Devlearn is from from November 16 until the 18 at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. To attend the Adobe Learning Summit you require a separate fee, however the good news is that right now the price has been reduced from $395 to $249. You will have an opportunity to not only attend my session, but you'll also get to attend up to three other hour long events. Alternative you attend one of two Hands-on events which will have some true industry experts teaching you how to get the best out of Adobe Captivate.

Here is a link to the event

https://www.elearningguild.com/DevLearn

and a specific link to information about my session on mLearning in 60 minutes. You should show up just to see if I make it.

103 Create mLearning in Less than 60 Minutes

I hope to see you all there.