Using Raptivity with Captivate

Several Captivate users build Raptivity interactions for use in their elearning and presentation materials. Adobe, the maker of Captivate, has been releasing upgrades and new versions of Captivate over the past several quarters. Naturally, their users want to stay on top of the best ways to use Raptivity within Captivate.

Raptivity for its part has also kept a high pace of innovation, with new releases coming out ever so often. The resources I will cite here are useful for Raptivity 5.5, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2 and 6.5.

A recent blog post on the Raptivity blog addresses the integration of Raptivity with Captivate quite comprehensively for Captivate 5.5, Captivate 5 and Captivate 4. In addition, here are some more places you might want to go.

1.  The first place to go is the ‘Using Raptivity Output with Other Tools’ document which you will find under the resources page of Raptivity website.
2. The Captivate integration steps – if you are trying to work around audio issues – are found here.
3. One great place to get the latest word on this is the online Raptivity Community. Here you will find discussion forum on Raptivity Captivate integration. 
4. Community forums for all other tools are accessed here.

Raptivity 6.6 Enhanced Element Collection Management

When a product evolves from one generation to the next, many things get better - sometimes to a point where you find it hard to imagine how they had been before. I am having one of those moments with Raptivity right now.

One recently implemented feature of Raptivity 6.6  has got me thinking. It is the Enhanced Element Collection Management functionality. I know that sounds a mouthful - but the idea is really basic. In designing interactions, you often need collections of similar elements. Examples - a pyramid has levels, a flipbook has pages, a simulation has scenes, an animation has path segments, a rollover diagram has hotspots, an assessment has questions and so forth. All these are examples of collections.

In working with collections, here are some common situations the course developer comes across:

1. Add a new element
2. Delete an element in between 
3. Duplicate an element along with its contents
4. Drag an element from somewhere and place it  somewhere else

You can imagine how hard life would be if you could not perform these seemingly simple actions easily. Yet, in the past, users had to resort to all kinds of clever shortcuts and workarounds to accomplish these tasks. That was life before Raptivity 6.6.

Now with Raptivity 6.6, users can use the mouse right-click context menu and easily insert a blank element,  delete or duplicate an existing element or alter the sequence of elements with a simple drag-and-drop operation. That makes it easy to duplicate a flash card, re-sequence questions in a TV game and delete that panning card you don't like.

This discussion applies to collections of various elements supported in Raptivity. Certain special graphic elements such as Paths, Highlights, Hotspots and Parts  don't get covered under the new functionality. Why is that? Because Raptivity already has a way for you to manipulate these directly from the interactivity editor itself.

If all the user feedback and comments on Raptivity community are any indication, this new feature set is sure to receive a warm welcome! Users will see it as a sure productivity enhancer.

Better Productivity with Raptivity: A Story of Customer Centricity

When Yehudi Menuhin was asked: "What has music taught you?" he replied: "It has taught me to listen." It is no different with product design. You design products in a flash of inspiration, and keep making them better by listening to your customers.

The Raptivity 6.5 release is full of productivity features that are based on ideas that come straight from the trenches. Here are some examples.


Users found it a chore to delete sample content from interaction templates before adding their own. They needed the sample the first couple of times, but later on they wanted a way to start with a clean slate. That was the genesis of Raptivity's Blank Template.

Another area where course developers faced some inconvenience was in putting together media content for use in interactions. Raptivity now shows helpful information such as recommended image size, sound bit rate, video format, size, frame rate etc alongside the customization window.

As interactivity design came to occupy prime time, a quick step-by-step procedure to build interactions became critical. The new version of Raptivity provides that too - in the customization screen.

Raptivity's productivity enhancements span across the entire product usage experience. Users can convert their trial installation into full use package just by adding a license key. There is no need to install the full package over again. Likewise, while deactivating the product, the license key is detected automatically. These little enhancements bear testimony to Raptivity's commitment to the course developers' productivity.

Building m-learning : Eliminating Redundant Effort

Training Magazine’s Learning 3.0 Conference in Chicago on 4th and 5th October 2011 features a talk by Bijoy Banerjee on what he calls Single Source Content. I talked to Bijoy, Senior General Manager at Harbinger Knowledge Products, about his vision for eliminating redundant effort in building m-learning and e-learning.

Okay, what's the pain point you are addressing?
BB: Today’s learners are prepared to access learning on desktops, laptops, smart phones and tablets. As a training content developer, are you prepared to support all these different devices, their operating systems and browsers? That's what I'm trying to address.

So, where do we begin?
BB: Well, step one is to get out of denial. Acknowledge the challenge. Recognize that the prospect of creating content for all these devices, platforms and browsers separately is daunting - particularly when you think of the separate development and maintenance efforts and cost. Clearly, creating separate content files for each target delivery point is quite an uphill task if not impractical.

And- what's the big idea?
BB: Well, don’t lose heart yet! It’s indeed possible to address all these different devices, browsers and platform by a single content output, developed as a single project, at a single cost allocation. We call it Single Source Content.  Single Source Content is a “Single File” of content - HTML5 based - that runs seamlessly on desktop, laptop and all mobile platforms. The content can be delivered online through a learning management system. It can also be carried on the learner's device and played offline. Finally, it complies with tracking standards (SCORM, AICC) and accessibility guidelines (Section 508).

What are the advantages?
BB: With this solution you don’t need to separately plan for eLearning and mobile learning content development. Just develop the content once, and then push it from LMS, as is usual  in the case of eLearning delivery, to be accessed by multiple devices and their browsers. Because you need only a single project for developing the content, the single source content solution provides great cost efficiency. Not only that, single source content solution brings great operational efficiency as well - while updating the content, just update one file and the updated the content is available across all! Finally, nothing matters if learners don’t find the learning engaging and interactive. Single source content scores there too! 

Interesting, and one needs to dive deeper to understand better. Where do we find out more about this approach?

BB: You can get a sneak peak at this solution in Training Magazine’s Learning 3.0 conference in Chicago on 4th and 5th October. Or you can write to me at info@harbingerknowledge.com.

Thanks, and good luck for your talk in Chicago.
BB: My pleasure, and you are most welcome.

Power vs Ease of Use: Do We Need to Choose One?

Industry gurus have long maintained that authoring tools can be either powerful or easy to use. They say: choose one. I say: I want both. Is that possible? Well yes, if the tool designers pay attention to flexibility.

Consider interactivity templates. The very idea of a template connotes a cookie-cutter approach. Easy to learn, easy to use. How do the template designers maintain the ease of use and yet provide powerful features that the course designer can control?

The answer is in flexibility. Here is a short checklist for template designers who want to build flexible interaction templates.

1. Element Size and Placement :  Provide control to the course designer over the placement of  whole elements, not just text labels, images, buttons and videos. Example: An interactive pyramid diagram template where the course designer controls the size and location of the pyramid - in addition to its levels and content.
2. Ample Space for Text: Some people just cannot say it in a few words. Support for long text strings clearly helps in such situations.
3. Text Hyperlinks: When there is a need to provide additional information that wouldn't fit the real estate of the interaction, a text hyperlink is the best way out.
4. Liberal Limits: How many pages in a flip book? How many steps in a process? How many bullets in a slide? How many terms in a glossary? How many hot spots in a rollover exercise? How many flash cards per interaction? The course designer has to exercise judgment in making sure there aren't too few or too many. That said, the role of template designer is to support a wide range between the minimum and the maximum number of such elements.
5. Video Support : With the explosion of video content over the web, users are expecting video support in several interactions. 

This list is obviously illustrative, not exhaustive. The recently released Raptivity 6.5 has several interactions that illustrate the use of these design practices.

Enhancing Interactions with Media Elements

A few years back, e-learning courses were largely static, with a few interactions here and there. As interactivity takes center stage, more and more learning happens through interactions. A learner may spend more time working through a simulation, playing a game or exploring an interactive visual than reading the course material. With this, course developers are increasingly feeling the need to provide additional information elements within interactions.

A large number of interactions today are developed using interaction templates. Templates can however be limiting when it comes to providing additional content elements. For example, consider an interactive Android phone tutorial where the learner rolls her mouse cursor over parts of the phone and explores its features. Now suppose the tutorial designer wants to provide a link to a Wikipedia article on Android - or to a Youtube video featuring the phone device. How cool will it be if the designer could add a button to the interaction itself, linking to the article or the video?

There are several use cases where media elements enhance the impact of interactions:

• Assessments where the learner watches a video and then answers questions. 
• A set of flash cards where the learner gets to pop up a text that explains a mnemonic to memorize what's on the cards. 

Diehard fans of Raptivity loved the Raptivity Media Toolbox that was showcased in a recent webinar. Using the Media Toolbox, a course designer can add custom buttons or hotspots to an interaction.

Raptivity Media Toolbox

Each button or hotspot can lead to a hyperlink, which can be a web URL. A button can also pop up a video (.flv/.f4v), an image (.jpg, .png, .gif) or  text.

Buttons work great  for learners who  have the curiosity to click and discover extra content. In other cases, you simply embed text or image media in the interaction - and the media will simply show when the interaction is displayed - no clicking is required. A video can also be embedded, so it starts playing as soon as the interaction loads.

This feature set provides advanced flexibility to Raptivity. Presently it works with certain packs of Raptivity 6.5. For more information visit www.raptivity.com and explore the power of Media Toolbox.

New Milestones for LearningHarbinger Blog

LearningHarbinger blog was selected in “TOP eLearning and Workplace Learning Blogs”

http://blog.efrontlearning.net/2011/04/top-elearning-and-workplace-learning.html

A recent post on LearningHarbinger blog (Explore Bloom’s Taxonomy Using this Interactive Resource) was selected among “Top eLearning Posts for 2010”. Check out this article for the entire list: http://www.elearninglearning.com/wpblog/top-113-elearning-posts-and-28-hottest-topics-for-2010/

A big thanks to all readers, guest contributors, blog followers and the team at Harbinger Group.

Mobile Learning and Interactivity

Does mobile learning need interactivity? Even more so, says Janhavi Padture, one of the invited speakers at Washington Interactive Technologies Conference, hosted by SALT (Society of Applied Learning Technologies). I talked to her to get her take on the subject.

Mobile content is short-duration, small-screen. Why bother making it interactive?
JP: There is inherently a greater chance of distraction since the learner is on the move. So the need for delivering engaging content is even greater.

Give us examples of interactivity on mobile devices.
JP: Real time polling, games, interactive diagrams.. there are several more.

What are some of the technology challenges in mlearning?
JP: Course designers must understand the differences in the various mobile devices, operating systems and browsers. There are many implications. For instance, the languages for native app development differ based on OS, iOS uses Objective C, while RIM and Android both use Java, but different SDKs of that! Or for that matter the media supported by browsers is different. Firefox doesn’t support H.264 format, while Safari will only support that, and Google introduced the new WebM standard but supports both WebM and H.264 formats. So then comes the debate of whether Native or Web apps and Flash or HTML5.

So, is there a ‘right way’ to design interactive content for mobile devices?
JP: There is no right or wrong. The best method is to come up with a checklist of requisites for your mobile learning interactivity. For instance, is this a performance support job aid where internet connectivity cannot simply be assumed? If so, native app makes sense. If you would like to develop once and deploy on multiple devices and desktop, you are probably better off with HTML5 web apps. Or if you must have stunning visual effects probably Flash is the best option today. As one attendee rightly pointed out, in order to be compatible with old versions of desktop browsers they decided to go with Flash. I presented this decision process as a simplified visual aid as we talked through each scenario.


What are the ideal characteristics for mLearning interactions?
JP: Best mLearning courses are modular, interactive and non-linear. There is the ability to selectively render content. There is a good balance of text and media content. Performance tracking is supported (with SCORM). Flash and HTML5 options exist for web apps.

What tips did you share for developing mobile learning interactions?
JP: We talked about Edumercial, i.e. extending the concept of commercials to education, and how that is so relevant to mobile interactions, because just like commercials it needs to be short and it needs to stick.

We also talked about videos & animations make great interactivity components for mobile as long as used effectively and not excessively.

Thanks and hope you enjoyed the conference.
JP: Indeed. Not surprisingly Government sector representation was the highest among attendees. It was good to interact with them and exchange views.

A Learning Interaction Look-up Table

Here is the quick learning interaction look-up table I promised in an earlier post for instructional designers to locate some of the best examples of the various types of ready-made interactive elements.

 

Interaction	Tool	Where used	Examples
Games	Raptivity Games	Combine challenge with fun using super-charged learning games	Click
	Raptivity MindPlay	Accomplish learning outcomes with game shows and strategy board games	Click
	Raptivity WodPlay	Introduce popular crosswords and innovative letter games in your eLearning	Click
	Raptivity Booster	Games, simulations and learning aids	Click
	YawnBuster Competitive Games	Games  for groups to collaborate and compete in classrooms	Click
	YawnBuster Training Games	TV games and letter games for a multiplayer classroom setting	Click
Simulations	Raptivity Simulations	Simulate real-life learning experiences using award-winning Raptivity simulations. Build guided adaptive scenarios, explorative branching simulations, immersion learning situations and whiteboard simulations	Click
	Raptivity Standard  3	technical training -overview visuals, flow diagrams and software simulations.	Click
3D Artifacts	Raptivity 3D	Enrich Content Presentation with 3D Objects and Virtual Worlds	Click
Social Interactions	TeemingPod	Embed polls and discussions in web content, invite discussion around presentations	Click
	YawnBuster Business Activities	Get learners in a classroom to brainstorm, prioritize, build mind-maps, t-charts and collaborate	Click
Active Learning	Raptivity Active Learning	Achieve comprehension, application and analysis - three key middle layers of Bloom's taxonomy - in adult learning	Click

Flash in eLearning - Seven Traps to Avoid

Flash is a free cross-browser plug-in that allows interactive content to play on most browsers and computers.The sophisticated Flash development environment allows programmers and designers plenty of room for creativity. No wonder then, a lot of e-learning is built using Flash.

If you are considering the on-going use of Flash for developing e-learning, here are seven traps to avoid.  

7. The frame rate trap
Flash files can support multiple frame rates. By itself, your interactive component shockwave file (.SWF) will play okay regardless of the frame rate. The trouble starts when you integrate it with an authoring tool that presumes a different frame rate. You will find output distorted, or simply not showing. Ensure that you match the frame rate of the container application.

6. The de-compiler trap
Reverse engineering experts can start with your .SWF file and get at the source code of the program you have painstakingly developed. If you care for protecting your code from being reverse-engineered, consider the use of code obfuscators.

5. The broken path trap
Often your Flash program refers to external content files (such as a voice-over stored in a sound file, or an image stored in a bitmap file).  When delivering the SWF, make sure to maintain the relative path, or else your content will not play because of broken link.

4. The text formatting trap
When working with text that needs rich formatting, especially when working with foreign languages, you may want to consider using a sophisticated word processor to get the text exactly as you want it to be, and then carry a snapshot of it into the Flash file. This will result in a more pleasing text output.

3. The image distortion trap
Flash objects scale and distort images that do not conform to the presumed size requirements. Better to use an image editor to crop images to recommended size and avoid distortion.

2. The CPU cycles - battery life trap
If you are delivering a mobile learning application, be aware that Flash code is CPU-intensive and can drain batteries sooner than the end-user would like to.

1. The iPad trap
If you wish to deliver your interactive eLearning on iPad (or iPhone or iTouch) then you will need to consider HTML5 in the place of Flash.