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Where's Joe Presenting?
Write me for info about any of these or click the links to register.
Raptivity Training
July 10, online
Captivate Training
at Kaiser Permanente
July 17-18, Rockville, MD How to Create Great eLearning!
July 19, online
SALT Conference
Aug. 15 - 17, Reston, VA
Enterprise Learning Conference & Expo
Sept. 24-27, Irvine, CA
mLearningDevCon
Oct. 2-5, Philadelphia, PA
Learning 3.0 Conference
Oct. 22-25, Chicago, IL
eLearning Guild DevLearn
Oct. 30 - Nov. 2, Las Vegas, NV
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People I Admire Patti Shank
This is the first of a new series I've started, about people whom I admire, primarily those who labor in the eLearning industry (but not always).
 I've long admired Patti Shank and am happy to call her a friend. Many of you probably already know Patti from her many speaking engagements, classes she has taught and her books, articles and research papers. Her company, Learning Peaks, is on the forefront of excellent eLearning consulting.
Patti recently took on the mantle of Director of Research at the eLearning Guild and is responsible for the excellent ongoing research conducted at the Guild. Research is accessible to all paid Guild members. Click here to see more.
Her official bio:
Patti Shank, PhD, CPT is the Director of Research at The eLearning Guild, and an internationally-recognized information and instructional designer and writer and author, who helps others build valuable information and instruction. She is listed in Who's Who in Instructional Technology and is an often-requested speaker at training and instructional technology conferences. Patti is quoted frequently in training publications and is the co-author of Making Sense of Online Learning (Pfeiffer, 2004), editor of The Online Learning Idea Book (Pfeiffer, 2007), co-editor of The E-Learning Handbook (Pfeiffer, 2008), and co-author of Essential Articulate Studio '09 (Wordware, 2009).
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Reader Feedback In Volume 2, I showed a tweet of mine: Love free Google Translate on Android and iOS. I say something and it repeats it in the foreign language of my choice. Universal translator? Jenny C. wrote me: I love the tip for useful translators.
However, I always caution my students to make sure they have someone who knows the 'translate to' language review it for accuracy. Those translators might 'think' like spell checker in the sense that they may take something literally that was stated figuratively or colloquially.
I have a friend in California who speaks perfect Spanish (Columbian Spanish) and perfect English (not even a hint of an accent). I wrote an ad that I wanted to post in a Spanish periodical. I used an online translator (not the Google one) and printed it for my friend to review. He read it laughed so hard the tears streamed down his face. It turns out that phrases familiar to the English language translate literally into Spanish and you may end up with a funny outcome or maybe even something very embarrassing or insulting.
So be wise and get a second pair of human eyes to review the important stuff.
Cool Beans
Frijoles frio.... Or would it be frijoles macho! |
Want Training?
Captivate, Raptivity, Roleplay, Storyline, ZebraZapps
Call 703-927-9437
What My Students Say...
- I learned SO MUCH at the workshop. I couldn't stop hyping it up to everyone at work and tweeting about it. I hope to continue to follow Joe and, if he teaches a longer session and it's open to me, to attend another. At the risk of sounding like a groupie, Joe Rocks!
- Joe infused software education with an understanding of eLearning best practices. Invaluable was the introduction of an approach to create interactive, learner-driven eLearning beyond just teach-and-test.
- It was both informative and fun - good humor and warmth coupled with Joe's tech wisdom.
- The training was great! I was impressed especially as a virtual participant. I really enjoyed it and would recommend virtual participation as you engaged those of us on the phone as much as those in the classroom.
- Having paid much more than the cost of this workshop for similar professional training workshops in the past, I feel the Adobe Captivate workshop taught by Joe Ganci was an excellent value.
- Joe Ganci's workshop not only taught me how to razzle and dazzle eLearners, it sparked imagination in my dry procedure-writing brain.
- I attended your session today and I loved it. I learned tons.
- You did a fantastic job and were extremely helpful! I look forward to gaining much knowledge from you in the future
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Need eLearning Help? I love helping my clients achieve their eLearning goals. I will travel to your location or we can work long distance.
I can help you: - Make the right decisions in implementing eLearning.
- Choose the right eLearning tool for your needs.
- Create templates, engines and guides for your team in any of the tools I mention in this newsletter.
- Create a whole eLearning project for you from start to finish, or...
- Fill a need during the analysis, instructional design, or development of your eLearning.
In short, I'm flexible and I'm good! I have lots of references I can share with you. Clients are served on a first-come, first-served basis, so let me know what you need and I'll let you know what I can do for you. If you'd just like to talk things over and ask questions, email me and let's set up a time to talk very soon.
elearningjoe@joeganci.com
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Greetings!
Hot on the heels of the last newsletter, here's another! Big announcements are coming this hot summer (unless you're in the southern hemisphere, in which case, bundle up)! Care to contribute? Just write us at elearningjoe@joeganci.com. |
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| Free Captivate Example
 I had an inquiry from someone who was having a hard time figuring out how to set up navigation in Captivate that will result in scenario levels. For instance, take a look at this image of the branching view from a Captivate file I created.
At Level 1 (blue), you have two buttons, each of which takes you to a different slide at Level 2 (purple).
Each of the slides at Level 2 has three buttons. The first slide's three buttons each takes you to a Level 3 (green) slide. The second slide's three buttons take you to a Level 4 (yellow) slide.
At level 3 (green), one of the slide's buttons takes you to a Level 5 (red) slide.
I used this approach to illustrate the concept, color-coding each set of options, to help make it clear.
However, this begs the question, when would you use this type of approach? Anytime you have a need to drill down, this approach works well. For instance, if at level 1, you have an option of the thirteen original United States, each can lead to a different slide. If, for instance, someone then chooses Virginia at the first level, at the second level you give the option of choosing from among the five largest cities, and so on.
This type of drill down approach can lead to a LOT of slides being created, of course.
When you open the file, note the following:
- I created master slides, one for each color level.
- I created custom buttons, which I'll demonstrate another time.
- On the first slide, I placed the following text caption at the top of the slide and set its Timing to rest of project and ensured that the checkbox Place Object on Top is checked. This will allow the text to stay up the whole time and the variables will automatically update slide to slide.
Slide $$cpInfoCurrentSlide$$: $$cpInfoCurrentSlideLabel$$
- The result is that each slide will show both the slide number and the slide label. Of course, this means you want to label each slide, which is always a good idea when you are navigating from one slide to another.
- You can save a lot of time when you multi-select slides in the filmstrip. For instance, you can set multiple slides to the same master slide from the drop down in the properties box.
- Selecting more than one slide will also let you paste the same object on every slide: a very good timesaver unknown to many. For instance, you can create a Start Over button on Slide 2 that returns the learner to Slide 1, and then copy that button to the clipboard and paste it on every other subsequent slide in one fell swoop. See the following YouTube video I created to show how this is done.
Next time: How to do this even better in Captivate 6!
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| Two More Captivate 6 Reviews
Last issue I gave my quick overview of Captivate 6 with a link to my longer review. This time, here are two more Captivate 6 reviews:
Anita H's Review:
Mark Waterfield's Review:
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 Free Storyline Example
I've started playing with Storyline and have put together an example using triggers and states. In this case, an image is on the stage. Each time you roll over the image, it reduces in size, up to four times.
See how it was built on my YouTube channel:
Download the source file here:
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ALLEN INTERACTIONS ZEBRAZAPPS
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FREE ZEBRAZAPPS EXAMPLE
 Here's a simple example I created in ZebraZapps that took all of five minutes. In this example, you move a slider left and right and it causes two actions to occur:- The sun will come out from under the horizon and reach the highest point in the sky.
- The sky will lighten from black to sky blue, brightening as the sky rises higher in the sky.
You can see the example and move the slider back and forth by clicking this link:
You can also see how I built the example on my YouTube channel:
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Chris Allen at Allen Interactions conducts frequent tutorials for Zebra users or those interested in Zebra. This one regards setting up smart rollovers for drag-and-drop objects. A lot of great insights into how to develop in Zebra in this example. Take a look at how it's done in just over five minutes. http://t.co/ndyhn4iV
Remember, if you aren't already a Zebra user, you can sign up for a free 60-day account at www.zebrazapps.com. After that, it's so inexpensive to use Zebra, you'll be amazed. |
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Raptivity Training!
 I will be providing an online training session for Raptivity users on July 10. For a limited time, you can save 10% on registration.
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Raptivity Mind Map Demo
In my last issue, I mentioned that Harbinger has a new interaction, the first of a free series called Evolve, for those who own at least the Essentials pack and have a current support plan. This interaction lets you create cool, interactive mind maps.
Click the image to see a demo of the
Mind Map interaction on YouTube.
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Now there's a band-new tool from iSpring that is absolutely free, appropriately called iSPring Free! It converts PowerPoint to Flash quickly and easily (Windows only).
Click here to download your own copy.
 And...if you need a PowerPoint to HTML5 converter, iSpring Converter, is the one you want. Try it free, be convinced by how great a job it does, then pay only $99 for our own license.
Click here to download your own copy. |
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Do you have experience with these or other eLearning tools? Would you like to let everyone know about the tool of your choice? You're welcome to contribute here and be recognized for your efforts!
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