Posts Tagged ‘Articulate’

Youblisher.com | Publish PDF Flipbooks

Friday, March 12th, 2010

How to Turn Your PDF Documents into Online Flipbooks

Flipbooks are a current novelty and a fun interaction appropriate in some e-learning courses. The Articulate ‘09 suite of rapid e-learning development tools has an Engage Flipbook interaction. However, I often find that the pages in the published interaction look too narrow to me.

Through my online, personal learning network I discovered Youblisher.com from Brian Batt of Articulate. I viewed his screencast tutorial, went to Youblisher.com to upload an old user guide I created some time ago, and created my first Youblisher.com Web-based (Flash) flipbook from a PDF file.

Take a look by clicking the image below. (Note: The PDF file I used was a low resolution file.)

Diplomas in SumTotal Systems Total LMS 7.2

Click image to view flipbook in a new Youblisher.com browser window.

Brian Batt of Articulate created a screencast of Youblisher.com and added it to his post on the Word of Mouth Blog. You can insert the Youblisher.com output as a Web Object in an Articulate online course to use it instead of the Engage flipbook interaction if you need wider pages for your content.

You can view Brian’s screen cast here:

Or, click the link below to view it directly on Screenr:

http://screenr.com/RRh

I’m already thinking of some ideas on how to use Youblisher.com in future e-learning courses!

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PowerPoint 2007: Designs for e-Learning v.2

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

You Can Still Design with PowerPoint 2007

Eleven months ago today, I wrote a post on the new design elements and features in PowerPoint 2007 (2008 for the Mac) that allow you to create visually effective designs and templates for your e-learning courses. You can use these PowerPoint templates in both your Articulate and Adobe Captivate e-learning project files.

More PowerPoint 2007 for e-Learning Templates

A few days ago, a colleague on Twitter posted a link to a simple Web page. When I clicked the link and visited the page, it seemed to speak to me: “Turn me into an e-learning design.” So, I did, and created a brief SlideShare presentation to demonstrate it to anyone who can use more ideas. Now, don’t be fooled by its simple design. You can do so much with the basic framework and modify it to meet the needs of your learners, the business (or academic institution), and the learning content that will fill the screens.

My Samples On SlideShare

My SlideShare.net mini-presentation describes just one design idea. Please note that I respect Copyright issues, and the rights of designers. My mini-presentation simply shows what you can do using only PowerPoint 2007/2008 elements plus importing a few photo image files. (My thanks to Bryan Jones – @elearningArt – for the free image files package!)

Why Give Away Design Ideas?

The global e-learning community gives, gives, and gives again. We all share the same passion, and we share what we learn and what we create with each other. Visit various blogs and Twitter pages authored by e-learning colleagues. Go to the community forums of the various e-learning software tools. If you have some favorites of your own, please share them in the Comments section.

And, my first SlideShare.net presentation on PowerPoint designs for e-learning still exists!

Visit: PowerPoint 2007 e-Learning Screens

“Always learning….”, and I welcome your design ideas!

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Hardware for Voice-Overs, Audio Narration

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Neytiri - Na'vi in AvatarVirtual communities and collaboration constantly amaze and engage me. Social media impacts the way we work and live every moment of each day. Information flows into our personal learning networks at Warp Speed. I feel almost like a Na’vi from “Avatar” due to the vast network of connections and information available to me at the click of my mouse!

David Anderson, @elearning, a Community Manager at Articulate, forwarded this Forum thread to me where he had asked the user community to share information on the hardware (etc.) we use to record audio narration, or voice-overs, in our e-learning courses. When I saw the new thread, only Gerry Waz had responded at the time. I created a demo, posted it late at night (1:00 a.m.), and by sunrise, a third person had added his hardware details. I can’t wait to see how this thread will grow… but… that’s the thing. It will only grow if people share, connect, and collaborate.

So, if you’re reading this blog post and you record narrations, please visit the forum thread and share your hardware (and software) setup for recording audio narrations. Who knows! Your information may be just what someone else needs to successfully record narrations.

Hardware for Narration – Articulate Presenter

Click here to open my brief demo in a new window.

Hardware for Narration Demo

Hardware for Narration – SlideShare

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Voice-Over Audio Narration for e-Learning

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e-Learning and Background Audio

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Audio that Enhances Learning

Tuesday, 1 December 2009, Tom Kuhlmann of Articulate (VP of Community) published a blog post on effective uses of audio in e-learning courses. His post is about using background audio, or ambient sounds, and he included this great example from the New York Times:

ambient_audio1

Click here to view the New York Times demo.

But, his post made me think of something beyond background audio, and I remembered a March 2009 client course where the client and I created a “scene” to model effective posture, words/phrases, and tone of voice. Take a look:

The setup is somewhat similar to the NYT demo, but we didn’t use background audio. Honestly, that never occurred to me, and after reading Tom’s post and seeing the NYT demo, I’d like to add targeted, effective background audio (ambient sounds) to scenes in e-learning courses.

One example I can think of is a course on business etiquette and customer service for back-office staff in a very busy environment.

Hmmm. I can hear the phones ringing off the hook even now!

You may also be interested in this blog post:

Voice-Over Audio Narration for e-Learning

Please share your thoughts in the Comments section of this post. If you’re not a spammer, I’ll approve you!

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Happy One-Year Anniversary!

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Wow, What a Ride!

Tuesday, August 19, 2009, I celebrated my one-year anniversary as sole proprietor of Ridge View Media, my freelance consulting business. To commemorate this occasion, and to thank certain people and companies, I used Articulate’s new Web-based screen casting tool Screenr to create an anniversary video.

The funny thing is, there’s a “Freudian slip” in my narration. I mention my first “12 years” instead of my first “12 months”. I had to laugh and left that in the video, because some days it felt like it had been 12 years. :-)

Enjoy! And, if you played a part in RVM’s success as either a client or a partner, my heartfelt thanks go to you! You mean a great deal to me.

I look forward to the second 12 months! ~Jenise Cook

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