Getting there!

Been awhile since I posted last!

Very busy the first quarter of the new year, with face to face staff inductions, so no time to work on this project.

Attended a Captivate eLearning course in March/April, where I discovered that I already knew quite a lot, but was still helpful.

Started working on this project again in April, and made good progress.

In May I took two weeks Annual Leave. As no-one was available for training while I was absent, decided to take the plunge and launch what I had so far, on new staff. Decide my best laid plans, this wasn't done while I was away, so came back to a big list of new staff waiting to be inducted. So I contacted them all with the info and asked them to self-enrol on the course.

I launched it as Stage 1, a work in progess, and asked for feedback. The next stage will incorporate more interaction, and fuller content.

Feedback so far has been excellent.

Added a survey today so that I can collect feedback more easily.

Update

Different people I have spoken to regarding formats/programmes are:
Shaun - recommends using Flash vs animated gif
Scott - recommends using Flash vs animated gif
Earle
Ann Khan - uses Camtasis and animated gif
Nuddy Pillay - uses Camtasia and flv (flash video format)

What programmes/format to use?

In the last month have done a lot of learning, experimenting, testing and talking to others about what programmes to use, what formats are most accessible.

Have learnt that gif animated files wont work with audio.
Have learnt that Captivate is much easier to work with than Camtasia.

After testing the Manukau domain images, discovered that couldn't open .swf files on the Manukau XP09 domain. Then discovered that swf format can't be opened on any Manukau managed domain independently from web browser. But for this project won't need that anyway.

Scott and Shaun recommend Flash format as everyone has it.

• platform independence
• more efficient for using compressed video and audio
• much more efficient than using animated gifs
• efficiency in terms of delivery of video, audio and captioning
• mature tools make it easy to create
• Utube used flash
• flash penetration is high, used globally

If want to put stream videos on mediacat, need to have videos in flv format - would probably need a conversion programme to convert.

making progress

Spoke to Ann Khan today and told her what I was trying to do.
Outcome was that have decided to keep it simple and not try to get too fancy when I'm new to creating online learning.

If using Captivate, which saves as a swf file format, would work fine if using eMIT, but otherwise the difficulty is that you need to choose a media format eg Quick Player - and then if the user doesn't have that particular media format, then they can't open it. I want the learning materials to be used in different situations, so flexibility is important. The other difficulty with Captivate is that I believe it would be a steep learning curve and we don't have money in budget to pay for training!

With Camtasia, because you can save it in .gif format, it is easy to use anywhere.

So, outcome was - will use Wimba Create with Camtasia on eMIT.

Plan completed and emailed to Oriel today - yay!

Planning

Have spent quite a bit time working on my plan, but it's worthwile because it obviously makes me think ahead and document exactly what I want to do.

So now that I know what I want to do, I'm still not certain about the best way to do it!

I did want to use Captivate to create interactive simulations but unfortunately no budget left this year for training. Another programme which I think does interactive simulations is Articulate, but not sure if can get approval to purchase, and how easy it is to learn. May have to compromise (for now) and not use interactive simulations. Maybe next year may be different.

Lyndal from Business Mechanix is at MIT tomorrow, so will take the opportunity to spend 30 mins with her to work out which software will do what I want.

follow-up from eLearning meeting

I'm trying to get started with planning my online IT Induction training, but am stuck!
After our meeting a couple of weeks ago, what I took from that was that I shouldn't be using Captivate for recording screen motions because the output is Flash format and the feedback that I got was that not everyone has Flash format (inspite of the fact that Flash is a free download).

So I'm happy to use Camtasia for this purpose.

However, the advantage of Captivate is that you can record interactive simulations in which the user can have a go themselves, and receive feedback. But again, this is Flash format.I do want to get this right, my confusion is:(1) that anyone can download Flash so why is this an issue: and(2) if this issue how come professionals use Captivate?(3) if there is a good reason why I shouldn't use Captivate, can any recommend another programme does interactive simulations?
Articulate Engage is another programme I am interested, but again, the output seems to be Flash format.

Any feedback appreciated, I am keen to get started!

Preparation

Have made a start with my Plan and have laid out timeline and milestones. I need more information before I can finalise my plan.

I need to download a trial version of Articulate so that I can see that it is going to be suitable for my learning modules, then I can better decide what software I will use to create online learning.