Articulate - Word of Mouth Blog

Here’s a Boatload of Free E-learning Tutorials

jeanette — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:17:43 +0000

This guest blog entry was written by Articulate Community Manager Jeanette Brooks.

Picture this: You’re knee-deep in an elearning project with a crazy deadline and you need to quickly figure out how to customize a certain part of your course. Instead of spinning your wheels, you teleport yourself to the office of a fellow Articulate user, who walks you through the solution in less than five minutes.

Sound impossible? It’s not.

With Screenr, we see it happening all the time! Well, except for the teleporting part.

Fortunately, you don’t need a teleporter, because help is as close as your web browser. Quick, informal screencasts are popping up nearly every day in the Community Forums as folks use Screenr to share tips and tricks with each other. And the best part? These tutorials benefit the whole community.

Now it’s easier than ever to find and track these resources.

As the number of community-made screencasts grows, we want to make it easy for you to stay on top of all the great stuff being shared. So we added a Community Tutorials page where you can find screencasts on the topics that matter to you. It’s like pulling up a chair next to your Articulate peers and sharing best practices.

The lists come from a collection of Diigo bookmark feeds, which we’ve organized by product. As new screencasts emerge, we bookmark them and include them in the feeds. The lists get updated in real-time, with the newest screencasts appearing at the top. When you find great ones you want to keep, you can save them with whatever bookmarking tool you choose.

Each list has an RSS feed so you’re always in-the-know about new tutorials as they’re created. You can subscribe to individual lists (see the screencast below) or subscribe to all the lists at once by using the RSS feed on this page.

Watch the screencast below

View the screencast

Got an Articulate question that you don’t see covered in the Community Tutorials page? The Community wants to know! Post your question in the forums or add a suggestion here. And if you haven’t given Screenr a try yet, now’s a great time to do it! In less than five minutes you can screencast your favorite Articulate tip or best practice, and you’ll be adding to the value of the community, too.

New Articulate MVP: James Kingsley

gabe — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:25:22 +0000

Though it seems like just yesterday, it’s been 3 years and 8 months since we launched the Articulate Community Forums. In that time, forum membership has grown exponentially, and members have created more than 12,400 threads and more than 56,400 posts. So in the 1,338 days since we publicly launched the forums, that’s an average of 42 new posts per day — and a wealth of searchable knowledge that expands daily.

All members are key to the success of the community, but every so often an individual will stand out from the crowd, enthusiastically sharing all kinds of tips and tricks that benefit Articulate customers around the world.

That’s what the Articulate MVPs are all about: A team of customer experts who go above and beyond, consistently contributing quality information and reliably sharing their experience with with the world.

Today I’m pleased to announce the addition of our newest Articulate MVP, James Kingsley, also known as this.onEnterFrame in our forums; on Twitter as @onenterframe; and on Screenr as onenterframe.

Highlights of James’ Articulate Expertise

Here are some examples of James’ excellent contributions to the Articulate community:

James’ Frame; Entered Blog

Screenr Tutorials

Community Forums

James to Flash Developers: “You should hug Articulate”

I asked James to share some feedback about why he uses Articulate and participates in the user community. Here’s what he had to say:

Flash developers have been leery of products like Articulate.

Just when it looked like the eLearning field was declining due to all the technical difficulties, costs and time associated with it, a few products entered the market that brought eLearning to the masses. Articulate quickly moved into the lead because of its insanely easy learning curve. Know how to use PowerPoint? Well then, you know how to use Articulate!

For me as a Flash developer this was a boon. I could have my SMEs or instructors quickly create most of the course content and structure. Then I could focus my Flash programing on the areas of the course that really needed it. I feel this approach is in line with most modern training development theories, and it creates a quality product in less time. Before Articulate, I would need to write a lot of code to accomplish what it does in a few minutes. Articulate does my Flash grunt work, enabling me to get creative with the parts that need it.

The addition of Engage and Quizmaker allows people to make pretty cool interactions and quizzes that help keep students involved in the learning. Of course, folks always want more complex interactions so they turn to the Flash programer once again. The Articulate Presenter SDK enables me to plug my Flash piece into the main course, passing information and events back and forth. Now with the Articulate Community Interactions I can package all of Flash stuff into a single file. That makes my Flash reusable and shareable, again reducing time and cost for eLearning development.

If I ever feel a bit lost I can always turn to the ever-growing and willing community that surounds Articulate. They are happy to help and because there are so many someone can usually point me in the right direction, if not give me an immediate solution. The community is the kind of place where you enjoy sharing your knowledge and seeking others. Many of the members have started creating Screenr screencasts of their tips and tricks, quickly producing short tutorials.

Flash developers: You should hug Articulate.

Thanks for sharing your story, James, and congrats on this honor! I look forward to your ongoing contributions to the community.

Join Us at These Upcoming Elearning Conferences

mark — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:25:02 +0000

This guest blog entry was written by Articulate EVP of Sales & Marketing Mark Schwartz. You can follow Mark on Twitter.

Over the next few months we’ll be hitting the road to participate in several industry conferences. We always enjoy meeting you face to face, and we hope that if you’re attending any of these conferences, that you’ll stop by our booth and say hello. We love showing you what’s new at Articulate and learning what you’re up to.

Here’s where will be through the end of this year:

PowerPoint Live 2009 — October 11-14, 2009, Atlanta, Georgia – This is “the” annual PowerPoint conference that brings together PowerPoint MVPs, luminaries, and power users to share best practices on using PowerPoint. Tom Kuhlmann and I will be demonstrating Articulate Presenter — the industry’s best PowerPoint-based e-learning authoring tool in the vendor expo on October 11^th. Tom will be sharing some of his favorite PowerPoint tips as well as learning some new ones that he will undoubtedly share with his 45,000+ Rapid E-Learning Blog subscribers.
Educause Conference 2009 — November 3-5, 2009, Denver, Colorado — Educause is the conference to learn about the intelligent use of information technology in higher education. What’s more intelligent than using e-learning to improve student performance and reach a broader audience? Articulate’s e-learning tools have been deployed in hundreds of higher-ed institutions around the world to support distance learning, e-learning, and hybrid approaches. We’ve chronicled some recent experiences at Miami University, University of Houston, University of Tennessee (links to PDF), and University of Leeds. We’re in Booth #359. Joining Tom and me on November 4^th will be Articulate QA Manager and popular Articulate blogger, Dave Mozealous. Dave’s posted some popular blog entries on publishing Articulate to Moodle and Dokeos, so if you have any LMS integration questions, you’ll want to meet with Dave.
DevLearn 2009 — November 11-13, 2009, San Jose, California — The eLearning Guild’s DevLearn conference features useful keynotes and concurrent sessions that will improve your e-learning skills. We’re in Booth #205. Make sure also to attend the sessions led by Articulate representatives: Tom Kuhlmann’s Five Way’s to Get the Most out of Rapid e-Learning Tools, David Anderson’s Creative e-learning Makeovers — Practical Ways to Redesign Your Courses, and Jeanette Brooks‘ Easily Create Reusable Content for Your e-learning Courses. Also, check out the pre-conference certificate program — Using Articulate to Quickly Design and Develop Exception e-Learning courses. When you register, use the special Articulate Discount Code 205DL09 to receive $100 off your DevLearn2009 registration.
Online Educa Berlin — December 2-4, 2009, Berlin, Germany – Online Educa Berlin is the largest global e-learning conference for corporate, education, and public service sectors. Meet popular blogger and Articulate product specialist Dave Moxon and VP of Sales Don Freda at the Articulate booth, where they’ll be demonstrating the latest offerings from Articulate.

The Articulate Calendar is a great way to stay up to date on Articulate conference appearances and live webinar events.

We’re looking forward to meeting you face to face — or online — this fall and winter.

101 Rapid E-Learning Tutorials

jeanette — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:12:01 +0000

This guest blog entry was written by Articulate Community Manager Jeanette Brooks.

When we launched Screenr last month, it created quite a buzz! What’s cool is that the Articulate community wasted no time digging into this free & nifty web-based screencasting tool.

Within the first few days, community members had created, tweeted, and re-tweeted dozens of how-to screencasts. And the stream continues! Every week new screencasts are bubbling up and being shared in the community forums and on Twitter.

Here, for your e-learning pleasure, we’ve collected 101 rapid elearning tutorials, created by your fellow users and the folks here at Articulate. Each one’s 5 minutes or less, and I bet you’ll learn some stuff here that you didn’t know before.

Remember, if you discover a particularly helpful tutorial, you can add it to your virtual library or subscribe to the author’s stream by using one of the social media tools we covered last time.

Screenr on!

PowerPoint Tutorials

Articulate Presenter Tutorials

Articulate Quizmaker Tutorials

Articulate Engage Tutorials

Articulate Video Encoder Tutorials

Tutorials that Span Multiple Articulate Tools

Like what you see? Why not take take a stab at it yourself? Join the community and share your own tips and tricks.

How to Manage All of Your E-Learning Resources

jeanette — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:24:45 +0000

This guest blog entry was written by Articulate Community Manager Jeanette Brooks.

When I was growing up, my family had a “catch-all” drawer. You know, a place for things we wanted to keep handy, like pens, a screwdriver, a tape measure, and who-knows-what-else.

The concept wasn’t bad. Problem was, it took forever to find anything. Stuff was all jumbled together. Do you have the same problem with your collection of e-learning resources?

Build a Functional Library Instead of a Catch-All Drawer

Maybe you’ve been saving links of cool stuff you find online, like helpful Screenr videos, product tutorials, good forum threads, and some of the other community resources we mentioned in the post on how the community can help you build better elearning.

There are probably some favorite blog posts you like to save too, like this one on getting past click and read elearning, this one on creating perfect screenshots to use in your course, or this one on common quiz mistakes.

But with all these great links, you might’ve found that your browser’s bookmark list is suddenly longer than your arm, and about as functional as an overflowing catch-all drawer.

Here’s where some of the social media applications really come in handy. They make it easy to collect, organize, and stay on top of the resources that matter to you. Instead of a jumbled list of links, you can build an organized virtual library. This way, you’ll be able to find what you need, when you need it, and from any computer. If you want, you can even share your resources with others.

There are lots of free tools out there for this. Tom Kuhlmann and David Anderson put together the following screencasts to show you some good options. The screencasts focus mostly on how to manage your collection of Screenr videos, but you can apply the same logic to all of your other online resources, too. Check ‘em out:

Diigo
Delicious (take a look at this one too)
Pageflakes Here’s a link to the Pageflakes site.
Evernote
RSS and Google Reader
RSS and BlogBridge
Using an .opml file to add feeds to your reader
Using ClusterURL to tag & share Firefox browser tabs

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to collect and sort your online resources. Your best bet is to find the one or two tools that work best for you and stick with those, rather than trying to manage all of these tools.

New to this sort of thing?

If all of this social media stuff seems a bit confusing or you’re just getting started, check out these videos that Common Craft put together. They’re short and fun, and will get you up-to-speed. Here’s a collection of some especially good ones:

Click here to view the collection of Common Craft videos.

Already using tools like these?

Maybe you’re already using these or other nifty tools to save and organize your online e-learning resources. If so, share your tips with the Articulate community. We started a forum thread where you can tell about your faves. Or better yet, create a quick screencast to showcase the tools you use, and then post the link. Together, let’s banish the virtual catch-all drawer!

Here’s How the Community Can Help You Build Better E-Learning

jeanette — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:53:14 +0000

This guest blog entry was written by Articulate Community Manager Jeanette Brooks.

The other day my 9-year-old tried mowing the lawn for the first time. The initial results weren’t so good. Lots of uncut tufts of grass remained, sticking up like unruly cowlicks after a bad haircut. In some places, he had mowed big, loopy circles.

Luckily, a neighbor kid (with nearly a summer’s worth of lawn-mowing experience) came out to give some friendly guidance. Soon my son was mowing nice straight lines — though it did take him a while to correct all those circles and patchy spots.

The Value of Learning From Others

There’ve been times when I’ve approached e-learning projects the way my boy approached lawn-mowing: just fire up the tools and get to work! But I’ve noticed that doing it solo can be a lot like mowing in circles. Sure, you can produce some results, but you might waste a lot of time, energy, and resources in the process. And despite putting in some hard work, you might end up with a patchy outcome. You might even find you have to re-do things if your initial approach or workflow wasn’t quite right.

Good news! You don’t have to go it alone! The Articulate Community has a slew of e-learning developers just like you, who can come alongside to provide ideas, knowledge, and help.

Here are some ways you can leverage the power of the community:

Join the Community Forums. The forums are the most powerful tool for finding the answers you need. It’s like a virtual team of peers, ready to share solutions and best practices with you. Topics range from very specific questions to lively discussion threads. Lots of Articulate moderators hang out in the forums, too, offering help and connecting people with the resources they need.
Learn from great examples. To spark your own learning & inspiration, check out the dozens of top-notch e-learning examples in the Community Showcase. All were developed by your fellow Articulate users. See something you like but aren’t sure how to build it? Post a question in the forums and you’ll get lots of feedback and ideas.
Use Screenr as a learning tool. We just launched this free screencasting application last month! Already there are tons of great Articulate screencasts out there, created both by users and by the Articulate crew. Do a Twitter search and you’ll see what I mean. And when you find screencast authors you like, you can even subscribe to their Screenr feed. But don’t limit yourself to just viewing screencasts – try creating some! It’s a quick, easy way to share your knowledge with others.
Subscribe to the blogs: The Word of Mouth blog (yep, that’s what you’re reading now) gives you timely info about updates, how-tos, case studies, and lots of other breaking news about Articulate users and tools.The Rapid E-learning Blog is the most widely followed blog in the e-learning arena. It’s where Tom Kuhlmann, our VP of Community, shares handy tricks and advice for e-learning newbies, pros, and everyone in between. Make sure to check out the comment section at the end of each weekly post, too — it’s another great place to interact and learn. To subscribe, visit each blog post and click the RSS button or enter your email address in the subscription box.
Start tweeting: We’re on Twitter and we love to tweet with our customers! Don’t forget to also check out what some of the Articulate folks are tweeting about. You’ll get lots of tips and scoops about Articulate software and other e-learning topics. And by following Articulate tweeps, you’ll quickly discover some other cool e-learning people to follow, too.

So don’t mow in circles! Tap into the Articulate community. Not only will it help you build better e-learning, you’ll also broaden your skills and maybe even have more fun in the process. I bet you’ll even find yourself helping others along the way.

Stay tuned — we’ll soon be sharing more about how you can stay on top of new resources as the community continues to grow!

28 New Training Dates Announced for 2009 & 2010

gabe — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:56:07 +0000

We started offering open enrollment training in U.S. cities this year, and every single one was completely sold out. Now’s your chance to sign up for open enrollment training this fall and throughout 2010 — we just posted 28 new training dates in the U.S. and Canada.

4 Class Topics, Including 2 New Topics

These public Studio ‘09 Pro courses are taught by a certified Articulate expert via our authorized training partner, Yukon Learning, and up to four class options are available for all dates and locations:

Basic Articulate Class
Advanced Articulate Class
Fundamentals of Rapid eLearning Design — NEW!
Effective Use of Video in eLearning– NEW!

You can purchase the Basic and Advanced together as the 2-day Studio Expert Class to really jump-start your Articulate course development skills and to save $240. And, where all 4 courses are available, become a real e-learning expert by selecting the 4-day All-Inclusive Option to take all 4 courses and save $440.

2 More Classes in 2009

There are two more training sessions that have been added this year:

Richmond, VA — October 13-15, which includes Fundamentals of Rapid eLearning Design
Richmond, VA — November 17-20, which includes Fundamentals of Rapid eLearning Design & Effective Use of Video in eLearning

26 New Classes in 2010

Along with the two 2009 classes, we’ve published the open enrollment training schedule for 2010, which currently includes 26 classes in the U.S. and Canada.

Visit the Articulate Training page to view available dates and locations, and to sign up for classes. Use the drop-down menu to see what’s available:

Then click one of the links you’ll see to purchase the training. Remember to note the session(s) for which you’re signing up in the Articulate Store order notes.

Don’t miss out — sign up today before classes sell out!

All of the Richmond, VA (Glen Allen) classes will be taught at Yukon’s new state-of-the-art training facility, which you can learn more about in this promotional video:

Attend a Live Articulate Product Demo — Now in Spanish & French

gabe — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:57:25 +0000

New to Articulate and looking for a comprehensive overview of our products? Or just looking for a quick refresher course? We offer a live demo every weekday at 2pm U.S. Eastern Time that covers the basics of how to use Articulate Studio ‘09 Pro and Articulate Online.

And starting next week, we’ll also be offering the demo in Spanish and French — and at additional times more conducive to our global customers.

The Daily Demo is hosted in real time via GoToMeeting, so all you need is your computer and an Internet connection to join.

No registration is necessary, but you’ll want to join the meeting at least 10 minutes before the demo to ensure your computer has time to connect. You can listen via your computer speakers through VOIP or dial in with your telephone (call-in numbers will be provided when you launch the demo).

The scoop on the U.S. (English) demo is available here, and details for the new demos starting the week of September 21, 2009 are below:

Spanish Demo

When: Tuesdays @ 2:00 PM CDT (GMT -5) – except for Mexican holidays
Language: Spanish
Hosted by: Articulate Reseller TAEC
Link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/join/409517475

European Demo (English)

When: Tuesdays @ 14:00 BST (GMT +1), 15:00 CEST (GMT +2)
Language: English
Hosted by: Articulate
Link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/415122480

European Demo (French)

When: Thursdays @ 15:00 CEST (GMT+2)
Language: French
Hosted by: Articulate
Link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/908240753

European Demo (English)

When: Thursdays @ 11:00 BST (GMT +1) – except for UK holidays
Language: English
Hosted by: Articulate Reseller Omniplex
Link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/282688632

Prefer to view the demo on your own time? We have an archived / recorded version of the U.S. (English) demo here.

We look forward to seeing you online, where you’ll have the chance to see how easy it is to create great looking e-learning courses.

The Science of Effective Presentations: Customer Demo

gabe — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:34:03 +0000

Warwick Burgess, Director at Presentation Space, is an Articulate customer who understands the importance of an effective presentation: The Australian company has studied the science of it, including the impact on the human brain.

Creating and delivering content with Articulate Studio ’09 is an integral part of how Presentation Space trains its customers — which include companies like American Express, Clorox Australia, and Wyeth Australia — to become better speakers and presenters.

Presentation Space practices what it preaches and has done an excellent job leveraging Articulate tools to create online content that engages its audience.

Sample Course

This condensed version of the company’s Module 1 training course, according to Warwick, outlines “the importance of using sensory information and emotion to maintain audience attention:”

View Presentation Space Module 1 Demo

Some highlights of this course that really make it shine include the following:

Excellent audio quality
Professional graphics and imagery
Customized player template
Great use of animations
Good content organization via levels feature
Integrated help menu via an Engage Tabs interaction in the toolbar

Interview with Warwick Burgess

I asked Warwick a couple questions about his experience using our software:

Why do you use Articulate Products?

My background is in marketing and multimedia production. We came across Articulate searching for the best production tool to produce a comprehensive presentation skills eLearning course. When compared with the complexities of programming and producing a course using other software programs, we were delighted with the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the complete Articulate solution. We’re also using Articulate increasingly to produce and deliver short promotional presentations for both ourselves and clients.

What are your favorite Articulate features?

We use the majority of the Studio ‘09 products and features. We found the branching options and the Hide in Navigation Panel feature added significantly to the navigation options, and there were a number of productivity improvements in the ‘09 versions that have enhanced our production efficiency.

So next time you’re creating elearning or delivering a presentation, consider the physiological impact your delivery may be having on your audience.

Create Screencasts for Twitter or Articulate

gabe — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:19:46 +0000

We just launched a great new product called Screenr, which allows you to record screencasts directly within your web browser.

With Screenr, you can create publicly sharable high-definition screencasts of up to 5 minutes in duration. There’s nothing to download and it’s completely free. All you need is a web browser and Java, which most browsers already have installed.

Some highlights of what you can do with Screenr:

Record from a Mac or a PC
Preview your screencast before publishing
Share via Twitter
Retweet your favorite screencasts
Publish directly to YouTube
Share the link via email
Output to MP4, then import into your Articulate projects
Embed in your website or blog
Play videos in full-screen mode
Playback via your iPhone

Here’s a quick screencast (also embedded below) created by @fredericl of ReadWriteWeb as part of his Screenr review, where he notes that “Screenr stands out because of how incredibly easy it is to record a screencast and share it with your friends on Twitter:”

I’m having fun watching new screencasts being published in the Public Stream, where there are comments like this: “This was my first time playing with screenr, I think I am in love.”

Enjoy, and happy screencasting!