DreamQwest Innovative Learning & Design, LLC

All About E-Learning Storyboards

noreply@blogger.com (DreamQwest Innovative Learning & Design) — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:48:00 +0000

Whether you an e-Learning Developer, Instructional Designer or a Customer seeking to hire a training professional or buy a custom e-learning program from a 3rd party vendor, there are a few things you should know about storyboards. As an e-Learning Developer working with either a "green" Instructional designer, a non-instructional design team or a client, I find myself explaining processes, especially a storyboard.

What the heck is a storyboard?!?!

A storyboard, in layman terms, is a blueprint of an e-Learning course (self-paced, computer-based training, web-based training, asynchronous learning, whatever is the latest term today). It outlines the content visually for both the developer and the customer. The most important components of the storyboard are:

The graphical user interface or GUI (look and feel)
The content (the information presented on the screen from source files)
The interactions (any movable, clickable, user and non user interactions)
Multimedia (audio and video)
Timing

THE GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE

This means how the screen actually looks. For example, there may be 3-4 different layouts such as the welcome page, content page, quiz page, activity page, etc. However, there is consistency with the design throughout all of the layouts. Content must fit within the layouts in order to not confuse the learner and ensure a clean and professional design . When the graphical user interface is created, it is pertinent to provide the client with 1-3 options to select from.

Why? This gives the client a sense of being actively involved in the creative process. It is not always necessary to provide several options if at some point the client expressed specific directives. Secondly, involving the client gives the e-Learning developer and/or the entire non-Instructional Design team the approval of a design, so that changes will not be made half way or at the end of the project if the client is dissatisfied with the end product.

In terms of blended learning solutions, it is not always necessary for the graphical user interface to be an exact replica of other training materials. There could be an essence of the design in the e-Learning templates, such as using a theme or colors or even similar images.

Do not pigeon hole the design of your e-Learning course by basing it on something else. On the same token, if your client expresses a desire that the graphical user interface matches their company website or the company PowerPoint presentations that they have already created or even to adhere to the company style guide, you can still remain creative in your design within those parameters.

THE CONTENT

Often times an instructional designer or the client may provide tons of information derived from subject matter experts. It is your job to sift through the content and communicate the information clearly and concisely if a technical writer/editor is not available. Excessive verbiage will confuse the learner.

E-Learning courses should not be overburdened with on-screen text to read as if they are reading an encyclopedia. Often, I find that we overload a learner with too much unnecessary information or become repetitive. Get to the point. If you must expand or explain a term, process or concept in detail, use roll overs, pop-up boxes, imagery, diagrams, and charts. Nonetheless, get to the point! AND remember that all information must be tied back to the learning objectives. Anyway, all content should be placed in the storyboard so that the client may review, comment for edits and approve it.

THE INTERACTIONS

When an e-Learning developer receives a storyboard or creates a storyboard, they need direction of any user and non-user activity or they need to communicate the direction to the client through the storyboard. For example, if an image is supposed to fade in or slide in or spin 50 times, this must be communicated in the storyboard. If the e-Learning course is being developed in an authoring tool such as Adobe Captivate, Articulate or iSpring Presenter and there will be custom navigation buttons built on screen instead of using a player skin, this must be communicated in the storyboard. If the user is supposed to roll over an image or click a button, this also will need to be communicated in the storyboard. Anything requiring movement must be documented.

THE MULTIMEDIA

In terms of e-Learning, multimedia is any combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, or interactivity content forms. For instructional designers, I highly recommend using a balance of multimedia.

Limit the use of audio, i.e., narration. DO NOT turn your e-Learning course into a podcast. Learners should be able to understand the on-screen content without having to turn on their speakers and still learn. In many cases, a professional voice-over artist charge by time or per word. Too much narration could cost your client a pretty penny. In addition, if there are changes to the course in the future and the voice-over artist is no longer available, your client will need to re-invest in recording the entire narration with a new voice-over artist. Keep narration to a minimum. A good example, "Read the following paragraph" instead of having the voice-over artist reading the entire paragraph. This is something the learner could read for themselves. Use narration sparingly like salt and pepper such as giving direction NOT reading the entire on-screen text as if your learner is illiterate.

Videos are great when available. I love videos. However, if you or your client do not have the resources to shoot videos or incorporate the appropriate videos, opt for animation or still images. Be sure to include any existing and available video files in the storyboard. Don't have your client or e-Learning developer guessing. If the appropriate video does not exist, just don't include it in the storyboard. If it does, be sure you show the videos to the client for approval. Lastly, be sure to receive permission prior to utilizing any video if obtaining it from a 3rd party. This rule also pertains to any 3rd party graphics, animations, sounds, and pictures unless purchased from a royalty-free vendor. My last note on videos, too many videos make published file size large and slow when running it in a browser. Limit the usage of videos to the necessities.

TIMING

Though timing may seem like the least important component of a storyboard, it is very important in terms of contractual agreements, project deadlines and budgets. The client could only be paying for 20, 30, 45, 60 or even 90 minutes of e-Learning instruction. The average time a learner could complete a course depends on how long it takes for actual development. For example, to complete 60 minutes of e-Learning instruction equates to an average of 30-60 days of actual development time. Another reason why timing is important is so the learner can gauge if he or she will have enough time available to complete the training and to also know where they are in the training as they are taking it. Documenting the timing on the storyboard for each slide or screen, will notify both the client and developer that the project is within any contractual agreement and project deadline.

Who Storyboards and Why?

Who creates the storyboard?

It depends. Sometimes clients may hire an Instructional Designer to create a storyboard as part of a contractual agreement, then hire a developer to execute the design. However, in most cases, the e-Learning developer creates the storyboard from source files (content) gathered by the Instructional Designer or given by the client. Why? e-Learning developers have varying skill sets. These training professionals have the expertise to arrange, structure and communicate the content for the most optimal learning experience for the learner. Input from the client and/or a team should be considered; however, the e-Learning developer will be able to communicate their best recommendations based on resources available, software and technical capabilities and their current skill level. Not all e-Learning developers are created equal.

Should you develop without a storyboard?

Hell no! Stupid, stupid, stupid. I never recommend to just dive in without a plan unless someone is developing a course for their own viewing pleasure. From experience, developing e-Learning without a storyboard is asking for trouble. The storyboard is like a contract, an agreement, a communication tool between the client, Instructional design team, and the developer. If a client does not approve a storyboard, you will most likely waste time, money and possibly lose your job or contract. Trust me, when I was a rookie, I was stupid.

To make clear, a storyboard has 2 main purposes:

Client approval. It gives the client an idea of how, what, when and why of an e-Learning course. Have the client sign-off on the storyboard. If any changes from the client arise, you may kindly ask the client if they are willing to amend the contract to compensate you for the additional time and/or extend the project deadline to accommodate the changes.
e-Learning direction. It gives the developer specific instructions for the development of the course with minimum guess work. If changes arise for you, recommend the changes to the client and determine if those changes can stay within the budget and the project timeline. If not, ask the client to approve or deny the changes you recommend along with providing them an estimation of additional compensation and/or extension of the deadline. Sign and date EVERYTHING!!!

Not Actual Courses

There are several formats for storyboards. The two listed here are available to save and download. Just click on the hyperlinks.

Microsoft Word format: The storyboard created in Word has 3-4 columns and the reader can see the timing for each screen, a thumbnail of the screen, interactivity directions, on-screen text, narration script or other audio and timing. The reviewer is able to see each screen with the corresponding content, narration, audio, etc. The disadvantages are the screen size is small and there may be a lot of content, so you may only fit one or two screens on one page.

Microsoft PowerPoint format: The first screen has a page strictly for instructions for the developer such as content, narrations, interactivity, multimedia, etc. Every thing about the screen except for an image for the actual screen. The next slide will contain the screen only. The advantage of this format is the ability for the size of the screen. It is easy to clearly view versus a thumbnail. The disadvantage is the inability to compare and contrast both direction and screen synonymously.

If you have any additional input about storyboards or questions, please contact me at learn@dreamqwest.com

Snap by Lectora vs. iSpring Presenter

noreply@blogger.com (DreamQwest Innovative Learning & Design) — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:20:00 +0000

So as I was researching companies to market our custom elearning development services to, every single page on LinkedIn displayed an advertisement for the new e-learning authoring tool by Lectora, Snap! Now the ad was a bit shocking because Trivantis is only selling this tool for only $99 bucks. Now, I am a fan of investing our funds wisely, simply because we are able to make the services we provide affordable to our clients. In the past we've used just about all of the industry tools on the market, including Adobe Captivate, TechSmith's Camtasia, iSpring 5, Articulate 9 and Lectora Inspire. However, I will keep my review short and sweet. I only want to compare Snap with iSpring 5 only because the interface and functionality is so similar and iSpring is or was the most affordable tool on the market.

iSpr ing Presen ter runs $399. It includes a quiz maker and all the Christmas trimmings any elearning developer could want for rapid development. What makes iSpring so special are the Presentation protection features which include:

Watermarking,
Password protection and
Domain restriction.

In addition, the detailed quiz results via email feature allows any training manager the ability to receive quiz results without the use of an LMS. You just can't do that with Captivate 5, Camtasia, Articulate nor Lectora. Snap doesn't have these features either.

Snap is selling for $99. It also has a quiz maker with 7 question types, whereas iSpring has 10.

Snap by Lectora

iSpring Presenter

However, something iSpring does not have is Snap's survey maker. An elearning developer can make a survey from the quizmaker with iSpring, but they would need to not assign any weight to the selections and a selection would need to be marked correct.

The other feature Snap provides is the ability to insert an entire webpage on screen by just a click of the button.

Wonderful! The only drawback I see to this is if the student was to review the course with no internet connection. Then, you're asking yourself, "now what?!?"

What I do like better is the player customization for Snap. The color palette is much like Powerpoint or Word. The colors are brighter. iSpring kinda have you guessing a bit more because the colors are dull.

iSpring Presenter

Snap by Lectora

I've been an ultimate fan of iSpring, but I guess my major complaint with iSpring is the technical support. The support department is located in Russia, so if you have an issue, you're not able to get a reply until the next few days. Then, they don't offer the remote desktop sharing support to see your issue unless you're paying for some package. This blows my mind, when the issue is never an end-user problem. It's always a system error. With Snap, at least you know you can get support same or next day and if you're already familiar with Articulate, then the learning curve is very shallow. So depending on your immediate needs, either product will do. I can't really say one is better than the other because they are so much alike. For me, dealing with Snap would probably be better only because of iSpring's Technical Support has literally had me irate, LOL! When you have a deadline, 2 weeks to get an issue resolved is unacceptable.

At the same time, I would just keep being the loyal customer that I am because those key features are golden. So I guess purchasing Snap will have to be my back up tool when I can't deal with iSpring. These two tools are both great on price and features AND they allow DreamQwest to offer elearning solutions to our nonprofit clientele. No matter what new and inexpensive tool hits the market, the user still has to be an instructional designer to make learning efficient. So just because the tool does all these amazing things, if you don't have the creativity, knowledge and application of a systematic instructional design model & adult learning principles to effectively design & develop, then the tool is useless.

DreamQwest Innovative Learning & Design, LLC makes e-learning engaging, simple and affordable. We do the investing in the logistics, resources and talent, saving you time and lots of money!!!

Visit us at www.dreamqwest.com

Captivate Patch Now Available via Automatic Update Manager

noreply@blogger.com (DreamQwest Innovative Learning & Design) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:25:00 +0000

You may well wake up today to one of those cool little Adobe Automatic Update Messages with an update for Captivate smiling and winking patiently for you. We’re very pleased to announce that the patch for Adobe Captivate 5 is ready for prime time and coming now via Adobe Automatic Update Manager to your already installed copy of Adobe Captivate 5. (Still wondering about the Flash update to fix the Animated Text Captions issue without using the authoring patch? Read this related post.)

(The documentation below is also available as a knowledge base article here. — Thanks Smitha!)

Adobe Captivate 5.0 patch

What’s covered

Installation instructions

Open Adobe Captivate , and click Help > Updates. The Adobe Application Manager appears.
Ensure that the Adobe Captivate 5.0 Update under Adobe Captivate is checked.

Click Update. The patch starts installing. When the installation is complete, you see the following message:

Click Quit.

Alternatively, you can download the patch from this website.

Verification

Launch Adobe Captivate, and choose Help > About Adobe Captivate. If the build number is displayed as 5.0.1.624, then the patch has been installed successfully.

Issues fixed in this patch

Capture

If an Adobe Captivate project contains a text object that is typed manually during capture, such an object does not get rescaled when the project is rescaled.Note: To fix the issue, after installing this patch, open the original project (one that is not rescaled), rescale it, and then publish it again.
When a recorded project is played, the actions are depicted before they are shown in the simulation.Note: This issue is fixed in the Adobe Captivate 5.0 patch. However, when you install the patch, you don’t obtain the fix for this issue automatically. To obtain the fix, modify the capturePatch.ini file as described in this topic.
The output of the project is garbled in the following scenario:
- You created the project by pasting slides from another project with smaller dimensions.
- The following settings are specified in the project preferences:
  - Rescale imported/pasted slide option is deselected.
  - Advanced Project Compression option is ON.
The starting point of the pointer on a slide that is generated just after an FMR slide (auto-FMR) is inappropriate.

Audio

A portion of audio gets cut at the end in the published output.Note: This issue is fixed in the Adobe Captivate 5.0 patch. However, when you install the patch, you don’t obtain the fix for this issue automatically. To obtain the fix, create the AudioOptions.ini file as described in this topic.

Publish

EXE files of Adobe Captivate projects do not work on computers without Adobe Captivate installed on them.Note: While opening the EXE files for the first time on Windows 7 and Vista, launch the file in the ‘admin’ mode.
When a project is password-protected and published as an EXE file, the EXE file closes when users enter the password and press the Enter key.
An EXE output of a project doesn’t play on a computer without Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) runtime installed on it.
When an aggregator project is published as an EXE file, the content is clipped on the right in the output.
Flash Player (version 10.1.102.64) crashes when an Adobe Captivate SWF file with a text animation is played.Note: Ensure that you publish the project again after installing the patch. The issue continues to exist with the output files that were published before installing the patch.

Upgrade

When you upgrade an Adobe Captivate 4 project to Adobe Captivate 5:
- The output options specified in the Publish dialog box are not retained.
- Adobe Captivate 5 crashes when you open a Adobe Captivate 4 project containing a matching question slide. The matching slide has column 2 options at a higher z-order than column 1 options.
- Adobe Captivate 5 crashes when you preview a Adobe Captivate 4 project that contains a Fill in the Blanks with the blanks on multiple lines.
- If the earlier version of Adobe Captivate project had the ‘Contain’ operator in advanced actions, the script contents are not displayed in the project after the upgrade.
- If the earlier version of Adobe Captivate project has Arial Regular font for matching question column 1, the font is changed to Arial Narrow font.
- The slides that were deleted in the earlier version of Adobe Captivate project are also shown in the TOC.
- The audio of a project does not play properly if the custom bit-rate of the audio is less than 32 Kbps.
- Inverted quotes for answers in correct entries appear in Text Entry Boxes.
- Text captions with bullets are displayed with an extra indent.
Issues with PPT-based projects that are resized in Adobe Captivate 4 before upgrading to Adobe Captivate 5.
If the Adobe Captivate 4 project contains blank captions, import of updated captions fails (File > Import > Project Captions and Closed Captions) in the upgraded project.

General

The positioning of a PPT-based project, which is specified after rescaling it, is not retained when the source PPT is edited.
A streaming video FLV file in a Captivate project doesn’t play at runtime if you haven’t specified a skin in the Property Inspector (Skin > None).
If the quality of a slide is set as JPEG, a black patch appears behind the captions on the slide at runtime.
When e-learners quit a course before completing it, and then resume it, the custom variables in the course do not retain the previous values.
When text entry boxes are made transparent (Alpha value in Fill is 0), the text becomes invisible.
Project information is not displayed in Adobe Captivate 5 like the way it is displayed in the Storyboard view of Adobe Captivate 4.Note: The Project information is now displayed in the Project preferences dialog box under the Project >> Information tab.
When the text is aligned to the right in text captions, the right corner of the text gets clipped. This issue occurs for a few font families and font sizes.
The results of a quiz are sent as ‘scores’ even though the reporting option is specified as ‘Percentage’.
When a project is rescaled, the ‘If the size is larger…’ and ‘If the size is smaller…’ options do not get enabled appropriately in the Rescale Project dialog box.
When you create a custom style for rollover captions and set it as default, Adobe Captivate doesn’t apply this style to rollover captions that are inserted in the projects.
The ‘Getting Started’ link on the Welcome Screen points to the Adobe Captivate Developer Center page instead of the Adobe Captivate getting started page.
Navigation buttons (Perpetual buttons) are missing in the Adobe Captivate tutorials on the Welcome Screen.
When the Editing tutorial is clicked the Welcome Screen, a tutorial on Recording appears.

Modifying the capturePatch.ini file to obtain the fix for the capture issue

Issue

When a recorded project is played, the actions are depicted before they are demonstrated in the simulation.

Additional information

This issue is fixed in the Adobe Captivate 5.0 patch. However, when you install the patch, you don’t obtain the fix for this issue automatically. To obtain the fix, perform the following steps:

Open the file capturePatch.ini in the Adobe Captivate installation folder. For example, C: \Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 5(on Windows) or /Applications/Adobe Captivate 5 (on MAC).
Change the value of Use Mouse Move Snapshot to 1:Use Mouse Move Snapshot = 1
Save the file.Note: If you experience problems on Windows 7 or Vista in saving the changes to the file, copy the capturePatch.ini file to the desktop. Change the file, and then replace the earlier file in the Adobe Captivate installation folder.

Important: When you modify the capturePatch.ini file as described here, the size of the Demonstration projects may increase. The increase in the project size can cause operations such as opening, saving, closing, or publishing to take longer time, and also can result in an increase in the SWF output file size. Training and Assessment projects are not affected due to the changes in the INI file, and we recommend that you modify the INI file for such projects.

You can roll back the behavior to that of Adobe Captivate 5.0 by changing the value of Use Mouse Move Snapshot to 0.

Using the AudioOptions.ini file to obtain the fix for the audio issue

Issue

A portion of audio gets cut at the end in the published output.

Additional information

This issue is fixed in the Adobe Captivate 5.0 patch. However, when you install the patch, you don’t obtain the fix for this issue automatically. To obtain the fix, perform the following steps:

Click here to download the AudioOptions.ini file or create one using the following steps:
1. Open Notepad (Win) or vi editor (Mac).Note: If you use any other editor to create the INI file, ensure that the file is saved as plain text.
2. Type the following text in the file:StitchPublishAudio=0
Save the file (with the name AudioOptions.ini)in the Adobe Captivate installation folder. For example, C: \Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 5 (on Windows) or /Applications/Adobe Captivate 5 (on MAC).
Close the Adobe Captivate project.
Open the project and publish it again.

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/captivate/update/captivate_5_updater.zip

Going Green: Why Distance Education is Better for the Environment - Distance Education.org

noreply@blogger.com (DreamQwest Innovative Learning & Design) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 23:15:00 +0000

Going Green: Why Distance Education is Better for the Environment - Distance Education.org

Blurry or Fuzzy Text in Adobe Captivate 3 and Captivate 4

noreply@blogger.com (DreamQwest Innovative Learning & Design) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:50:00 +0000

Lately, We've been experiencing a few issues with the display of text within Adobe Captivate 3. Since we haven't decided to upgrade to Adobe Captivate 4, we quickly learned that this issue persists in version 4. After reading a few forums and blogs on this topic, there have been little success in remedying this problem. It's so frustrating to provide custom e-learning development and utilizing an authoring tool that have some visual drawbacks. DreamQwest relies on being innovative in all aspects of our business, including resolving issues in developing online courseware.

How to eliminate blurry/fuzzy text in Adobe Captivate?

Create a white bitmap image with a photo editing software. TechSmith's Snagit will even do just fine for this task.
We created two images for two different dimensions. 57 x 30 and 99 x 55.
Save the images to your laptop/pc in a folder and name it small_white and big_white. Remember, the image type should be bitmap (.bmp).
Go to your C drive > Program files > Adobe > Adobe Captivate 3 > Gallery > Captions
Minimize the Captions folder (you will return to this folder in a moment)
Go to the area/folder where you originally saved the 2 bitmap images
Copy the two images and maximize the Captions folder to paste.
Now you can choose either of these two caption types instead of utilizing the transparency type when creating a caption.