I’ve been having a little bit of fun over the last few days.
A friend of mine is developing a very cool tool that will enable courseware developers to easily convert their presentation content into neatly-formatted MS Word documents for distribution to learners. If, like me, you’ve spent extended periods of time creating manuals from other media formats, you’ll appreciate the hard work and, to be honest, tedium involved in generating, formatting, proofing, and finally producing documentation to accompany ILT and WBT courseware.
However, it’s a necessary task, and with much grumbling and gnashing of teeth, something I just get on with doing. So anyway, this little EXE file arrive in my inbox a few days ago with some installation and how to use instructions.
Top Tip
Kids - Don’t go installing EXEs that arrive in your inbox unless you know exactly what they contain!
I went ahead and installed the program - still in early beta, remember and… it worked! It does exactly what every utility tool should do - simplifying or automating a repetitive, time-consuming, and error-prone activity: in my estimation, this app cuts production time by 80%.
I’ll talk more about this program when it’s released.
Now read on…
On 19th December last year I posted on a lecture I gave to the MSc in Education & Technology class in the National College of Ireland on the subject of Rapid E-Learning (REL) tools. In that post, I focused on the second part of the lecture, the lab or practical part of the lesson. Today, I’m revisiting this topic and discussing part one of the lecture: an introduction to REL authoring tools, with a particular focus on Techsmith Camtasia.
Quiet down now, and turn off your cellphones please! I’ve published a PDF of the Introduction to Rapid E-Learning Authoring Tools here if you’d like to download or view it online. The presentation covers:
- Authoring tools used in developing multimedia-based learning content
- How these tools are implemented to develop content using the Rapid e-Learning methodology / approach
- E-learning authoring tools
- Techsmith Camtasia
- Lab – creating a short learning object in Camtasia
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4 responses so far ↓
1
liz lennon
// Apr 18, 2008 at 11:33 am
thanks michael for this information - it’s very useful.
i have an rss feed of your blog and have found the posts really helpful.
yesterdays link to Jane Harts site and all the tools was a gem.
i’m developing a project called SKIL2 here in ireland. it’s in its very early stages but you are very welcome to wander over to the SKIL2 network I’m creating - http://skil222.ning.com.
i’ll keep enjoying your posts.
thanks.
Liz
2
Michael Hanley
// Apr 18, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Hi Liz,
Thanks for taking the time to comment and for your kind words.
Let me know if there’s any topics in particular you’d like to see discussed here at The E-Learning Curve.
I posted recently that at last there seems to be the beginnings of an online community of practise for learning professionals and hopefully SKIL2 will add some more momentum. I’ll certainly drop over to your site over the next couple of days and see what you’re up to.
Best wishes,
Michael
3
Anonymous
// Jun 23, 2008 at 9:09 am
iSpring Ultra is a very good e-learning authoring tool if you use PowerPoint to create your presentations. Take a look!
4
Michael Hanley
// Jun 23, 2008 at 9:15 am
Thanks for the info (whoever you are) - I’ll certainly take a look at the tool.
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