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  • I've been doing development since 1986, started with Plato system MicroTutor, then moved to Authorware until 2000. Used a bespoke system in Australia and since 2003 have used nothing but Flash. Occasionally use Captivate but only inside Flash though I have an upcoming project that I am considering using Captivate only, but making it look like our Flash modules.

    Funny thing is I actually miss developing in Micro Tutor, doing actual programming, line by line. Always felt it gave me more control.

    Kevin
  • We use Seminar by Information Transfer to build our modules, it does pretty much everything that we need it to.
    I build graphics in Photoshop, and have entertained the idea of using Flash, but will soon purchase Articulate Engage to add a bit more variety when it comes to interactivity.
  • Thanks for the comprehensive response, I agree that we should have a chat in the margins next week... :)
  • Neil

    I hope I'm not hijacking your worthwhile question but I'm a bit stumped. I work for the MOD in the UK Defence Academy and manage a high-end, bespoke, mandated, high-stakes series of courses (156 lessons over >100 hours of e-learning) which is developed in partnership with our academic provider. We write the content and the lessons are built in Flash by the provider so there is a lot of collaboration in development; the lessons are well designed but are difficult to update and enhancing the look and feel across them all is a daunting prospect. At the other end of the spectrum I represent teaching staff who have little knowledge of learning design but want to develop their own e-learning beyond converting PowerPoint.

    A realistic solution seems to be self-authoring using rapid-authoring tools and Atlantic Link, Mohive, Luminosity and Course Builder (but not Courselab) should have the answers. Unfortunately it's not that easy to make an informed decision:
    - The vendors will of course claim to do more or less anything that you want if you ask them.
    - Running a full-scale trial of the contenders would be a substantive undertaking.
    - I suspect that no one tool will be the best solution across the spectrum.

    Does anyone have any experience of the tools that they can share, or know of any authoritative comparison between them?

    More in line with your question, I'm presenting a case study at the BILD annual conference next week and couldn't neatly display the 3 year timeline in PowerPoint. I've put it into Prezi and it flows much better. I think that Prezi could easily become anoying if used gratuitously but hopefully, with thought, it adds rather than detracts. I'll let you know. As an aside I showed it to an academic whose eyes lit up. He'd been looking for a means for students to actively interact with a branching model with increasing layers of depth/detail that he had developed and Prezi could be his answer.

    Cheers, Jim:)
    • Jim,

      Certainly no hijack!

      I am trying to take my hat off here. So before I am accused I want to be straight up front as my company supplies SEVEN different authoring tools to clients. Lectora, Toolbook, Epiplex, Invoare, Raptivity, SwishMax and Quick Lessons.

      You are right, every vendor (actually manufacturer to be fair) will tell you that their product is the best'ist' great'ist' wonderful'ist' fast'ist' and you should buy it. Well they have to. What they are really saying is that it is the only one they have, so you need to buy it from them or they can't sell you anything.

      I have been supplying tools and services (development and support) in this industry for 16 years (yes, 1993) the first were clunky and unbelievably expensive. I would love to create a real honest independent comparison chart, however to do so we have to rely on the manufacturer to be frankly honest when they complete forms stating what the product will do. The last I saw was at an eLN conference in April of just three, and the list of what the claims are was somewhat inflated. Not untruthful, just inflated.

      There are in general 4 types of product.

      1. Flash creation: This can be either with a copy of Flash itself or a tool like Swish that mimics Flash (there are a number) Although these often create the best singing and dancing animation, they are extremely difficult to learn, have long creation times and are almost impossible to edit by anyone other than the developer who created the initial object.

      2. Rapid Development (template based) Not going to list on here the actual products to stop anyone accusing me of selling! These products are both stand alone and collaborative, they range vastly in cost as you have already seen. $30,000 for a team down to $99 a month. They also vary mainly in the quality of template available. Template based development looks great tot he buyer, they see it as a quick and easy way to develop learning. There is a place for these tools but the problem arises from two areas. First, when you have used all the templates a number of times the learning becomes repetitive with different content, the associations you build from style to content get diluted and the learner begins to confuse processes. Secondly, often the content you have does not fit the template, it is very easy to try to squeeze your instructionally sound content into someone else's template as it looks good!

      3. Powerpoint conversion tools: A number of these around now. Look great, cheap, and easy on the surface but in all honesty powerpoint is a presentation tool and without you the presenter is rather lame. Using this method of development and converting to eLearning creates interactive presentations not eLearning.

      4. Learning Authoring tools: Dedicated authoring tools have always been the best way. Longer creation times than the rapid model, but far better controlled output. There a lot on the market, they split into a further set of groups (those with scripting and those without, those with WYSIWYG and those without, etc etc) The choice here has to be based on what you are trying to create rather than what the tools offer. I also think you need more than one of you are a full time developer.

      Then of course there are thousands of tools that are content creation tools, tools that should be used to create objects that you drop into Authoring tools. These include Captivate, Photoshop, Camtasia etc etc. Many have been sold these tools in place of an authoring tool, yes the output to SCORM but what do you do with all these SCORM objects. (someone will say put them into Moodle and deliver them) However this shirks the concept of lesson plan and direction which is required for formalised learning. (in my opinionated opinion)

      Last;y you mentioned Prezi. Doesn't it look great? I have only seen one presentation made with it s far. It certainly grabbed my attention. But you are right, we actually discussed that by the end of the presentation we were feeling a little seasick!

      Maybe we can discuss at L&S a standard of comparison of these tools and get something online that we can all complete to create a true user comparison instead of the manufacturer info. May even help to increase my sales...

      Best

      Neil
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