Articulate Storyline Released

The long awaited new Articulate product "Storyline" has been released.

While I have yet to take it for a spin (the 200mb free trial is downloading as I type) here are the top 5 features that I am excited to check out:

1. HTML 5 and iPad publish options.
    
2. Screen Capture, aside from Captivate and Camtasia there hasn't really been another competetor in this field that also focuses on creating and incorporating your recordings in engaging E-Learning.
    
3. Open Question Types. Storyline promises to be 'scalable' in that it will allow experienced developers to take advantage of its more advanced quizzing tools. Hopefully this improves in an area where Quizmaker fell short some times.
    
4. Characters! Instead of packaging a dozen or so clip art characters,Articulate took a sandbox approach, promising a total of 47 500 combinations through their builder tool, with the ability to expand through added character packs.
    
5. Template Sharing. A strong point of Articulate has always been the active development community, and Storyline looks to take full advantage of its user base by incorporating the ability to save and share course templates.

Hopefully I can post a follow-up review on these 5 features in the near future.

Instructions

If you need them, you’re doing something wrong.

If users provide constructive feedback regarding problems navigating content, don’t start drafting up pages of help documentation and tutorial videos. Instead, identify what the problem is and if it can be solved through redesign. Navigation should use conventional terms and icons, and behave the way it is expected to behave. If you’re using clear icons and language, users should not need instructions to progress through the content.

Side note: My biggest pet peeve is LMS Course Players that strip the browser window of navigation, we should be able to design course navigation that compliments the standard browser functionality. Especially when designing non-linear content, the browsers back button should not need to be re-invented. Flash media can and should integrate browser navigation.

For engaging media, the objective and interaction of the exercise should be clear, or can be described with a couple concise sentences. Something like “Fill in the blank” should be all that is required, if the user needs to click a button to submit their answer, the button name should be all the instruction needed, it should just make sense.

For more complicated activities, consider building the instructions directly into the flow of the interaction. Allow the user to complete small goals, learning functionality of the total engagement as they progress to the main activity. Don’t forget to provide a skip to main exercise option as well though for the savvy or returning users.

The History of Online Education Infographic

Source : http://www.onlinecolleges.net/

Being Flexible

I’ve been playing around with Adobe Captivate’s Custom Widgets. While I can’t speak too highly about Captivate’s quizzing interface, I do think they’re doing it right when it comes to being flexible.

Allowing technical users to develop their own customized widgets for a Captivate project is a no-brainer. Not only does it allow users to develop beyond the restrictions of existing components, but with the developer sharing through Adobe Exchange, it actually grows their Captivate product line for free.
Articulate Quizmaker could learn from this model.

Want a fill in the blank question with more than one blanks? Nope, sorry.

Want matching question where items can match to the same responses? Nope, sorry.

Quizmaker is a fantastic tool, but its strength in being easy to use has a side effect of not allowing much customization. They needed to follow Adobe Captivate's lead and allow for Question Widgets through a Flash API.

I hear Articulate’s StoryLine is nearing finished, from what I hear it will be their first HTML5 centric tool. Here’s hoping they grow their product, develop a strong developer community, and allow for customization, all by being a little flexible.

Add a simple pause in the middle of a slide in Adobe Presenter

This seemingly simple request turned into a frustrating search for an answer.

Adobe's Support recommends you add "Pause after each animation" from the publish advanced settings, or I alternatively you could select "Advance by User" from the Slide Manager menu.

But these don't help for inserting a simple pause in the middle of a slide, and it wasn't until I stumbled on page 18 of a PDF from the University of Calgary that I felt very silly for not knowing how to do this before.

In the AUDIO edit of all places, we can right click the time line and choose "Insert Command" to add a Wait for User pause in the middle of a slide.

Goodbye *.swf hello student cheating

Adobe's business shift to focusing on producing development tools for HTML5 is fantastic. I believe there are a lot of champions and promoters of HTML5, but few realize for something like this to be fully applied and improved we need leaders like Adobe to provide us with the development environments where we can create our media without being concerned with something like writing Javascript Canvas Code.

There's just one small thing that's been on my mind however, something we've taken for granted. The SWF File format provided us with a 'reasonable' amount of security in terms of hiding answers to questions. It's far from secure, all you need is the ability to download the file, decompile it, and root through the source. However, this process for students is more cumbersome than actually just learning the material, not to mention technology that they're probably not familiar with.

As we move towards a Javascript, XML, HTML system for providing Assessments, we may find that increasingly web sophisticated students will find it easier to access answers to questions. You may not realize how quickly a determined student could root through your client side code, but any web familiar individual looking for a quick grade will find it quite easy to exploit your unsecured method of storing answers.

Tools like Quizmaker, or Captivate have provided us a fantastic way to create portable Learning Objects. Now, for reasons of security we may be forced into using our Learning Management System's proprietary Assessment Engine, limiting the shelf life and portability of our content.

Access Score Variables from an Articulate Quizmaker Quiz

I often get developers to my blog that are interested in using Articulate's Quizmaker to enhance their custom Flash based eLearning courses. I have previously written about how to load a Quizmaker quiz into your own Actionscript 2.0 swf and still report to SCORM. What if we want to do our own custom reporting? How do we access Quizmaker's score variables?

Well, assuming you've loaded the quiz into a MovieClip "_root.myContainer" here you are:

Score in % = _root.myContainer.g_oVariableMgr.m_arrVariables[7].m_nNumber
Total Points Awarded = _root.myContainer.g_oVariableMgr.m_arrVariables[2].m_nNumber

The Passing Percent = _root.myContainer.g_oVariableMgr.m_arrVariables[5].m_nNumber
The Passing Points = _root.myContainer.g_oVariableMgr.m_arrVariables[6].m_nNumber

Total Max Points = _root.myContainer.g_oVariableMgr.m_arrVariables[4].m_nNumber
Total Answered Max Points = _root.myContainer.g_oVariableMgr.m_arrVariables[3].m_nNumber

Enjoy!

Combine multiple SCORM packages into one

When moving to a new LMS you may find that it’s view of what makes up a ‘Learning Object’, ‘Module’ or ‘Course’ is quite different than what you are used to. This was the case when I was transferring content from Dokeos to Learnflex.

I had to find a way to quickly combine the modules I had exported from Dokeos (which was using learning paths) into one SCORM package. The tracking of each individual SCO was not neccesarry in this instance as it would only have a final assessment that needed tracked. My first thought was to launch RELOAD and start building a new package using all the exported files and my knowledge of the structure of the course. RELOAD however seemed to suffer from slowdown as soon as I was dealing with lots of items, I quickly became frustrated with having to wait to add a new page or module, so I began thinking about a faster way.

I loaded up a couple of exported IMSManifest files that I had exported from Dokeos. One thing I immediately noticed was that the “identifierref” attributes used in the files were numbered and unique. With that knowledge I figured the fastest way to combine Dokeos exported SCORM packages into one package was to manually cut and paste the XML files together. (or to use a script to do this that I should really just write and put online for others to use… will certainly update you if that happens) Anyways, for those proficient with XML here is what I did:

1. The first XML file will be your starting point, wrap all the <item>’s of this manifest into one <item> tag.
   
   tip: replace the <organization> tag with<organization identifier=”some id”> <item identifier=”some id”>, and then replace the bottom </organization> tag with </item></organization>.
   
   
2. For each package you wish to add, create a new <item ></item> and paste the items from that IMSManifest into your new <item> tag.
   
   
3. For each package you wish to add copy all the <resource> information and paste into the main file’s <resources>
   

This will give you one giant manifest!

If this solution doesn’t help with your problem Dave Mozealous also has a solution that may be what you are looking for. See: http://www.mozealous.com/repackaging-articulate-content-to-allow-multiple-scos/

Missing Files from an Exported Dokeos SCO

I was working on moving content from Dokeos to Operitel’s Learnflex LMS when I noticed that there were missing assets from Dokeos’ exported packages. I was not familiar with how the original courses had been developed, if they were built offline or by using Dokeos, but for some reason or another, the course relied on assets that the Dokeos system was not aware of.

While I have not discovered why this occurred, I did find a very quick way to resolve this problem and have a working SCO that I could transfer into another LMS. The solution relied on using both Dokeos’ SCO export, and its document file export.

1. From the learning path Export the required SCO

   

2. Unzip the SCO and take the IMSManifest.xml file you’ll find inside and copy it to a new folder. You can then delete the zip you downloaded.
3. In that new folder create a folder called "document"
4. From the course home go to documents

   

   and select save (zip)

   

5. Unzip all the contents and copy the files into the “document” folder you created
6. So your new folder should have the imsmanifest file and a document folder with all your content, simply zip these together and you will have yourself a working SCO!

Improving the Modern Learning Management System

Users of any online system are constantly providing essentially data regarding their habits and needs, most Learning Management Systems are just now starting to take notice of this data to build a learning environment that follows its learner’s path through products, time spent on content, and performance on assessments to provide a system that organically adapts to the specific individual.

By moving away from a static system of delivery to a system that understands and adapts to its user’s behavior we can provide a presentation to facilitate better learning. Think about it from an in classroom environment, the Teacher knows their students and can adapt lesson plans and one on one communication directly based on the needs of the student. Alternatively, the students as a whole provide valuable feedback to the teacher regarding their understanding of the material.

Let’s evaluate a couple key specific functionalities a LMS should supply to meet this demand:

1. Easily establish relationships from Questions to Content and report back to the learner suggestions for further reading based on their performance on course questions.
2. Determine popular content through tracking of page hits, time spent, or user based ranking report back to the instructor this information to allow for improvement of the course.

We can expand on this through a variety of functionality, some of which has been available through SCORM but should be better incorporated into the LMS itself:

• Time tracking - Allow the user to set the amount of time they want to spend on each lesson, provide feedback to them on how much time they have spent so far
• Automatic Content Notifications – When new content is added to a course the LMS should automatically display this to any interested Students
• Lesson Plan Recommendations – Using a data relationship between offered products the LMS should be able to recommend enrollment in other courses based on current enrollment and completion
• Most recent interactions– Instead of simply content bookmarking, the LMS should be able to provide a reminder to learners of their most recent activity within the system

As a developer I can spend the time to create a SCO that stands on its own and offers most of this functionality using javascript, or even some server side code, but this functionality needs to be available globally within the LMS and should be applied either automatic or by non-technical developers of online learning with a reasonable investment of time.

Excellent example of displaying statistics

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four:



Obviously something like this has a high production value, and is out of scope for most elearning development, but what can we take from this video and put into our products?

1. Enthusiasm - Like your favorite teacher, Hans enthusiasm for this subject comes through in his presentation. The more interested we can be about the subject when creating products the better the quality. It is not unlikely that you may be doing audio in your elearning products, so think about getting a narrator who's excitement for the subject can come through!

2. Visual - Although the graph on top of the video may be to flashy for most of us to create, it's not that crazy to imagine developing a flash based graph that shows these stats moving about. This graph makes use of real time and some great colors and sizes to help display a huge amount of information in a relatively simple and interesting manner.

3. Time - As a learning 'chunk' this video is fantastic. Coming in at only 5 minutes it is something that can be viewed on the go, or in between doing other work. It has a clear focus of what it is going to teach and does not get bloated or distracted along the way. Our learners can have short attention spans, especially if the subject is dry, or the power point presentation is not that flash. By keeping things short and focused we can best make use of our learners time.

5 Tips for creating Portable eLearning Products

If you needed to convert your products to a new LMS tomorrow how prepared are you?

Having just finished working on a large scale conversion project (explaining the absence of posting) I feel that I have learned a lot regarding how we should develop our products to prepare for the future. Sometimes we make decisions to band aid problems, or to try and utilize every last functionality of an LMS, and while this is not always a bad thing, we must keep in mind the consequences they could have if we ever try and use our content in a different system.

For now here are 5 things to think about regarding developing portable eLearning products:

1. Don't use authorware specific to a Learning Management System
   
   There are fantastic Authorware products out there that can help you build courses not tied to any specific LMS, you may think you're saving time by using your LMS's page builder, but you could be trapping your content, and giving yourself unnecessary functionality constraints.
   
   
2. SCORM or other standards
   
   Always build products with a standard in mind. And don't just rely on publish settings, take a read through some resources online or take a small course to get yourself knowledgeable about what it means to create a SCORM package, or to have SCORM reporting.
   
   
3. Always test the import and export functionality
   
   Taking nothing for granted when it comes to this! SCORM packages are quite gentle and every LMS has it's own quirks, just go hang out in a thread 27 pages deep in a moodle forum to find that out. My advice to you, test your LMS export, take that package and try it out using something like Scorm Cloud.
   
   Shopping for a new system? Make sure you test your exported packages with their import functionality so you don't get stuck make small changes to xml files!
   
   
4. CSS!
   
   I like to do a little trick where all my SCORM packages point to two different CSS files, one hosted on my LMS and referenced by packages I import to hold style that brands the courses with the organization. And one in the package with some default styles (for H1 p a br etc.) so that the course would display well on it's own.
   
   This way if the organization needed to complete a system wide branding change, we could achieve this through all products by modifying one file.
   
   Is this completely against the idea of portable packages? maybe, ha! but I can still give share or move this course and have it display just as well with the css file included in the package.
   
   
5. Don't trap your assessments in the Learning Management System
   
   Most Learning Management Systems have Assessment tools, and some of them can build really great Exercises or Exams. However, if you want to be prepared to migrate your content between systems, you are way better off using an application that will publish SCORM based SCO's that are not confined to one LMS.
   

Have you had experience with course conversion? I would love to hear about other development strategies to keep in mind!

"no matter how you came about your knowledge, you should get credit for it."

Bill Gates on Online Education:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/06/bill-gates-education/

Computer Science getting the recognition it deserves?

Not so much a direct eLearning story, but related none the less:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2010/07/bill_to_combat_comp_science_cr.html

Load an Articulate Quizmaker Quiz into your Flash Object and Track Score

This is an update to a previous post in which I proposed a way for you to load a quizmaker quiz into your flash project and track the score. I have now worked on a second version of this that works with most browsers, as the original solution was only for IE 7+.

For the HTML part, simply use Articulates published html, and swap the name of the swf it is loading. (you will also need to change the width and height)

In your flash project, for the onLoadComplete of the quiz, you must set all these variables:


function onLoadComplete(mc:MovieClip)
{
mc.vHtmlContainer=_root.vHtmlContainer;
mc.vCaptureRC=_root.vCaptureRC;
mc.vUseFSCommand=_root.vUseFSCommand;
mc.vLMSPresent=_root.vLMSPresent;
mc.vAOSupport=_root.vAOSupport;
mc.vIE=_root.vIE;
mc.vResumeData=_root.vResumeData;
}

Basically these are all the initializing variables sent by the Javascript/HTML to the flash quiz to let it know if it's in an LMS and also what type of Browser is being used.

There is one small code change that I made to api.js, this was to get the solution working in IE6, For some reason the only way I could get scores tracking in my LMS on IE6 was to add an alert box to the DoOnClose function in quiz.js

function DoOnClose()
{
if (!g_bCloseExecuted)
{
if(IE6)
{
alert("");
}
g_bCloseExecuted = true;

if (g_bAOSupport)
{
PostResultsOnUnload()
}
}
}

SCORM Cloud

Fantastic and Free! Site that helps you test any SCORM courses you're working on. Have been using it to debug several issues, and it's been nothing short great to work with.

Check it out: cloud.scorm.com

Apple Infographic

Had this sent to me from onlinedegrees.org, I don't endorse or really have any feelings about their site or business since I am not familiar with it at all, and this is clearly just a means of promotion for them....that being said, I still thought the infographic was worth re posting, with the aforementioned disclaimer.

Using Handwritten Fonts

Notice anything awesome about this post?

I was inspired by Tom's post at his Word of Mouth blog on using Handwritten Fonts to add personality to your e-learning courses. I've been using his free font sets in several flash objects and captivate presentations and getting great feedback, but didn't even think about using handwritten fonts in HTML pages because of the issue of converting and embedding fonts.

Then today I read a fantastic post at Net Tuts which outlined Google's Font API which allows for easy embedding of any of Google's supplied fonts, and sure enough they have this fantastic Handwritten Font called "Reenie Beanie"

Now we can add a touch of hand written fonts to our html without having to worry about creating images of the text, or having the font not show up on the end users system.

Thanks Google!

Apple's thoughts on Flash

Very interesting posting by Apple.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

With the demise of the PC as we know it now looming in the future, we should pay a close eye on where technology is heading. I don’t read this as Flash will not be successful in the long run, but I do believe that Flash will need to respond through their own software releases. All in all we want to follow these things closely so that we can develop for the trend and not find ourselves converting because we chose beta when everyone else chose vhs.

One problem that I face in developing in HTML5 is that a lot of user base I run into in elearning would not have the browser support for that. Given that I field support issues from clients using IE 5.5, it may take some time before I can introduce an HTML5 based course into my development. However, to develop for mobile learning it does seem that HTML5 may have the upper hand based solely on the expanding consumer base of Apple devices.

Hide the Review Quiz button from an Articulate Quizmaker Quiz

Very similar to my earlier post on removing the Finish Button on an Quizmaker Quiz. The Review Quiz button can also be removed by creating our own swf in flash with some small actionscript that we will insert into the first slide/question of the Quiz.

So, in flash create a new fla and on frame one layer one just add the following actionscript:

_root.g_mcFrame.mcReviewQuiz.swapDepths(_root.getNextHighestDepth());
_root.g_mcFrame.mcReviewQuiz.removeMovieClip();

Publish this to a swf, then in quizmaker insert that swf onto your first question or slide, this code will make sure that review quiz button gets removed!

Enjoy!