Well-designed, planned, narrated and produced audio content has the facility to engage the audience and transport the listener, providing the right cognitive environment for learning or entertainment or whatever goal the podcast seeks to achieve. As the old story goes, “there are better pictures on the radio.” Denis Nowlan, Deputy to the Controller for BBC Radio 4 describes this as

the wonder of radio [and sound] …the conjuring of magical sounds, Prospero-like, out of the silently teeming air. And the sense of joining, instantly, with a vast community of listeners.

(2005)

Of course, this cognitively experienced sense of “being there” is a completely artificial construct, none more so when you consider audio podcasting. The journey the podcaster takes us on is based on nothing in nature; that is, a narrative transmitted as binary data: electronically-mediated zeros and ones.

I will discuss this phenomenon in detail next time, but for now, read on…

Digital audio is actually very similar in concept to motion film, where a rapid series of still photographs make up a “motion picture.” Digital recording reproduces audio signals by taking many still “pictures” – or samples – of an audio waveform and then reconstructing the waveform for playback digitally (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Digital Sampling of Audio Waveform
[Click to Enlarge]

In film, the number of still images (frames) we move through the projector per second improves the smoothness and quality of picture we see. Similarly, the size of the film’s light-sensitive crystals in each frame determines the visual resolution of the image – and we all know movies look better in 70mm as opposed to the 35mm or 16mm film.

In digital audio, an analog signal is typically sampled 16 or 24 times a second – that is, 16 or 24 bits of data. A sample is created by taking a “snapshot” of the amplitude (or strength) of an analog audio signal at a particular moment in time. and converting that amplitude into a binary number.

The number of samples contained in each second of audio is called the sample rate. The greater the number of samples per second, the greater the resolution of the audio signal.

Let’s return to the film analogy: the faster the film rate through the camera, the better the ability of the film to pick up motion. For example, if you crank a film camera too slowly, then motion past a camera is not smooth since the frame rate does not capture enough frames in a given amount of time to stop the motion from appearing to jump or jerk – too much action happens in front of the camera “between frames” for the motion to appear natural.

Time for an example: The resolution of an audio CD is 16 bits and the sample rate is 44.1KHz. This means that the audio is sampled 44,100 times a second and a series of 16 zeros and ones is used to define the amplitude of the waveform at each of those 44,100 points.

This resolution – commonly called “CD Quality” and should be your baseline for recording a podcast. When recording voice-over narration, capture all of your audio at 16 bit, 44.1KHz, in mono using the WAV format in Windows, Au format for Unix-based systems (like Linux), and AIFF for Apple Mac.

More…

__________

References:

Nowlan, D. (2005). Radio: where the pictures are better: Denis Nowlan speaks for the medium which leads you by the ear. [Internet] Available from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KZH/is_1_19/ai_n15928065/ Accessed 12 August 2009.

–

The term pace has already entered this series of E-Learning Curve Blog articles about creating podcasts. In this post I will discuss pace, and then the related concepts of pitch, projection, and pausing, over the next few days.

Now read on…

Famously, there are three major elements in human face-to-face communication: body language, voice tonality, and words. According to Mehrabian and Ferris (1967, pp.248-52)

• 55% of impact is determined by body language – facial expressions, eye contact , body posture, gestures,
• 38% by tone of voice
• 7% by the content or the words used in the communication process

Anyone who has ever taken a course on presenting will have heard the instructor assert the axiomatic 55-38-7 formula to their learners as if it were inviolable, like fundamental physical constants like 0 Kelvin, c, or that TOS is better than TNG*.

David Lapakko (1997) asserts that this formula for communication is part of the “catechism” (p.63) of linguistics, proxemics, and psychology.

And that there is good empirical evidence that it is wrong.

According to Lapakko,

A closer look at the Mehrabian and Ferris (1967) study reveals severe limitations that call for prudence in interpreting their results… the findings may be an artifact of [a] small sample size.

(p.64)

His views are supported by other researchers’ findings, including Burgooon, Buller, and Woodall (1898) and Hegstrom (1979). Burgoon et al consider that:

[The 55-38-7 estimate] is erroneous. It is based on extrapolation of two studies, one comparing vocal tone to facial cues… and one comparing vocal tone to single words… rather than comparing all three.

(p.155)

Hegstrom agrees that:

The formula was pieced together from two different studies.

(p.135)

Indeed, Mehrabian himself believes that his findings are “often misquoted.” In Intercultural encounters: The fundamentals of intercultural communication (1995) he wrote that :

…all my findings …dealt with communications of feelings and attitudes…Clearly it is absurd to imply of suggest that the verbal portion of all communication constitutes only 7% of the message.

The refutation of the 55-38-7 formula is great news for podcasters in general and e-learning professionals in particular, because of course it means that we’re not operating in some notional margin of communication, but in its mainstream, as anyone who has ever created a podcast (or even used a telephone) to communicate meaningful information already knows.

In a sense, content delivery works independently of content; some people, as the saying goes, can make the phone book sound interesting. For those of us without this gift, we have to consider how to maintain interest and engage the audience. One of the ways we do this is to pace the dialog appropriately. I would assert that a narrative must be kept moving at a fairly brisk rate. The secret of pace is:

Allow enough time to each learning point for it to be well understood. Then move on.

Pace is impossible without intelligibility. Conversely, it depends in part by not going too fast. Pace depends on the precise shaping of the meaning and the words in time, and it provides the foundation upon which everything else is built.

When a podcast has a lack of pace, it is often down to another, subtler fault: a lack of organization in the underlying form of a podcast’s content. In the design of almost any good podcast, there should be a series of basic units of information, each occupying a few minutes. Each of these should contain one major learning point and sufficient supporting detail to help establish it as clearly as possible. The format of the podcast should provide light and shade within a piece, allow details to emerge, and a story to develop.

Certain types of verbal and linguistic construction don’t work in podcasts: they contain too much content, too little time, or both. For example, the cold, clear logic of a computer language like Java, or a turgid mass of detail are both death to clear, intelligible verbal constructions in sound.

With that in mind, here is the latest episode from my ‘Other’ Podcast – Transatlantic: the Flying Boats of Foynes (’New and Notable’ according to the iTunes Podcast Store). If you choose to listen to the podcast, you’ll notice that the piece is not merely a narrator telling a story: along with narration, there’s dramatization, eye-witness accounts, and incidental and background music. Other sound elements included in the series of podcasts include archive recordings, wild track, and a very cool sound collage to set the scene for the outbreak of World War 2 in September 1939.

In Part 4 of Transatlantic: The Flying Boats of Foynes

It’s 1939.

In Ireland, the town of Foynes in County Limerick becomes a boomtown because of its airport, and a tourist attraction because of the flying boats. The ground staff of Pan Am, and BOAC became part of the community, and the various Irish, British, and American communities live, work and play together.

But in Europe, events leading to the greatest conflict of the 20th Century are beginning to move apace as Fascism rises in Europe.

Autocratic single-party regimes in Germany and Italy have become totalitarian dictatorships. As their military might grows, their leaders lay their plans against the nations of the West…

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Click here to view the transcript of this podcast (PDF, 26K).

The observant among you will notice that the piece isn’t about e-learning. That’s OK – the point of e-learning is to provide training professionals with a means of creating and distributing content that enables people to acquire information, knowledge, skills, and expertise on a diverse range of subjects: as e-learning practitioners, it’s our job to facilitate this process.

More…

–

*Humorous Remark Alert! No Trekkie flames please; we all know that Picard is a better captain than Kirk…

__________

References:

Burgoon, J. K., Buller, D. B., & Woodall, W. G. (1989). Nonverbal communication: The unspoken dialogue. New York: HarperCollins/Greyden Press

Hegstrom, T. (1979). Message Impact: What percentage is nonverbal? The Western Journal of Speech Communication, 43, 134-142.

Lapakko, D. (1997) Three Cheers for Language: A Closer Examination of a Widely Cited Study of Nonverbal Communication. Communication Education, 46. [Internet] Available from: http://resourcemagazine.co.uk/acatalog/lapakko.pdf Accessed 31 July 2009

Mehrabian, A. (1995). Intercultural encounters: The fundamentals of intercultural communication (3rd ed.). Englewood, CO: Morton Publishing Company.

Mehrabian, A., & Ferris, S. (1967). Inference of Attitude from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels. The Journal of Counselling Psychology, 31.

–

Anthony Bates, author of Technology, e-learning and distance education (2005) states that audio (via radio broadcast) has been used in education for over seventy years. Examples of its uses include school broadcasting, informal general education, social action programming, and adult basic education and literacy (p.117).

Since its inception in 1969, the British Open University supplied about one-fifth of its output via radio programming. Typically it such programming centered around:

Discussions of course material or issues covered in printed materials

• Alternative viewpoints to those contained in the printed materials (i.e. guest speakers interpreting a text)
• Source materials for analysis (i.e. children’s speech patterns)
• ‘Performance’ pieces, including poetry readings, dramatizations of literature, musical performances

There are of course drawbacks to delivering content via radio broadcast or via analog tape. Radio broadcasts are wholly dependent on the broadcaster’s schedule, and minority programming is usually relegated to inconvenient “graveyard slots” – the learner has no flexibility around the schedule. Similarly, broadcasted material happens in real-time – the learner has no facility to ‘rewind and play back’ a presentation if they miss a point, unless they tape the program ‘off the air’ (if you’re old enough to remember, you’ll recall that this could be a messy business).

Cassette tapes had their problems too: analog recordings deteriorate with use and over time, tapes cassettes have many moving parts, the actual magnetic tape can break and become degaussed, and if you have a lot of them, they’re bulky to store.

The introduction of CD-ROMs in the late 1980’s mitigated most of these issues, and in a sense were the hardware breakthrough that presaged the beginnings of e-learning as we know it today. However, CD-based materials were expensive to produce, many pre-Pentium and PowerPC processors couldn’t handle the multimedia requirements needed to view and listen to the material delivered via this medium (800×600 CRT monitor, anyone?).

It was the emergence of the internet that genuinely facilitated audio and visual media-based learning. But that, my friends, is a tale that’s still being told, so I’m not going to discuss it here.

The Open University today, on iTunes U

All I will say here is that the internet enables access to e-learning content:

• For Anyone. E-Learning resources are available on-demand, via synchronous and asynchronous channels
• Anywhere. Digital content can be distributed just as easily on a home-based PC, a laptop, or (increasingly) via a mobile device. Content can be viewed both online and offline for maximum flexibility.
• At Any Time. You no longer need to rely on an IT department for distribution of large media files; content is easily delivered on demand to facilitate self-paced, OTJ and just-in-time learning.

Now read on…

The purpose of this long pre-amble was to emphasize the importance of understanding your target audience. When you start work on a podcast, you must be aware of not only what is to be said, but also to whom you want to say it. This is not merely a matter of your audience’s intelligence, but also of background, experiences and outlook. It is also powerfully related to the things that the listener would like to do – ranging from learning Spanish for a vacation, to passing their Microsoft Office User Specialist certification.

Podcasts – like blogs – develop a distinctive ‘personality’ according to the characteristics of the source material, the type of audience that material is aimed at, and the individual or team who produce the podcast. So, a Wired News podcast reviewing the latest and greatest computer technologies will sound very different from a podcast about conversational French for beginners.

A study in to the effect of BBC educational broadcasts noted that too many ‘teaching points’ (what we usually call learning objectives) – more than six per 15 minutes of programming were definitely bad for the user’s learning curve. Interestingly, where long, complex sentences with difficult vocabulary and a lot of prepositions did appear to have an adverse effect on intelligibility, the presence of a large number of adverbs and adjectives did not.

The conclusion was drawn that an apparent excess of facts, figures and descriptive terms is no disadvantage, because although they may not be assimilated themselves, they help maintain interest during the learning intervention.

More…
___________

References:

Bates, A. W. (2005). Technology, e-learning and distance education. Oxford: Routledge Falmer

Read more: http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/07/exploring-podcasting-for-e-learning-and.html#ixzz0MjnglJ8i

–

It’s a well-designed, perfectly executed, fully-featured lesson set that meets all of your learners’ needs. Now you need to get it to the people. But hold on! You’ve used one of the preset Camtasia production settings, and the output that you get on the screen doesn’t match your expectations.

It’s an unpleasant surprise.

You feel all your hard work has been for nothing. What’s worse, the clock is running, and you’ve assured your customer that their training materials is “Fantastic! No, really. It’s amazing. You’ll be really pleased.”

This is a relatively common situation e-learning developers encounter (according to people who have contacted me on this subject) so in my view, it’s worth exploring a little further: why does this occur, how can it be overcome, and how can it be prevented from happening in future projects?

The underlying reason for poorly-rendered content typically manifests itself long before a content developer clicks on the Camtasia Production Wizard ‘Finish’ button. To understand the reason, we have to look at the context: we must begin with Rapid E-Learning as an approach to developing courseware, and we must look at Camtasia as an authoring tool.

An overview of Rapid E-Learning

Traditional learning content development methods (see Figure 1) involve using subject matter experts (SMEs) working with instructional designer who, in turn, designs a learning intervention. A digital media development team then builds the interactive solution based on this design. The quality assurance team evaluates the solution against the design and test plan. This “waterfall” approach to content production can lead to long and costly design and development cycles, which can reduce the effectiveness of material with critical timelines or where content regularly changes or is updated.

Figure 1 Traditional E-Learning Content Development Model
[Click to enlarge]

Rapid E-Learning (REL) takes a different approach. While the definition of rapid e-learning differs among experts, generally it’s considered to be e-learning that can be developed quickly and inexpensively. REL uses tools and processes that decrease development time dramatically. Traditional courseware development timelines are measured in terms of months whereas REL timelines are measured in terms of days and weeks. This makes it an attractive solution for many companies. This can be a time-consuming process, even if a project runs on-time, with a minimum number of contributors (see Table 1).

Table 1 Production Logistics

In contrast, the Rapid E-Learning Approach can be defined as

the process of developing content quickly and inexpensively. REL uses tools and processes that decrease development time dramatically. Traditional courseware development timelines are measured in terms of months whereas REL timelines are measured in terms of days and weeks.

(Archibald, D. 2005)

Jennifer de Vries sees e-learning as being

…like the desktop publishing industry of 20 years ago, when desktop publishing was relegated to the one person with the big computer who knew the specialized software and laid out all of the documents. Then MS Word came along and it included many desktop publishing features, giving everyone the ability to create reasonably attractive material on a PC using this very simple software. I think rapid e-learning tools are going to transform the e-learning industry in much the same way, so that e-learning development will become more accessible to the general public.

(Fournier, J. 2005)

In essence, her opinion (which is one that I share), is that the tools used to create e-learning are at a point where they are on the cusp of a tipping point and become much more commonly used.

Figure 2. Where Rapid E-Learning Fits
[Click to enlarge]

These tools – Camtasia among them – are known as programming-free authoring tools. They are typically (though not exclusively) built for non-technical authors that don’t have programming skills. These systems are often template- or form-based and are very easy to learn and use. They are very efficient and productive tools if you need to quickly enable subject-matter experts and training professionals to develop e-learning content without knowing a programming language.

More…
___________

References:

Archibald, D. (2005). Rapid E-learning: A growing trend. Learning Circuits Magazine. [Internet] Available from: http://www.astd.org/lc Subscription required. Accessed 14th July 2006

Fournier, J. (2006). Rapid E-Learning Grows Up. Learning Circuits Magazine. [Internet] Available from: http://www.astd.org/LC/2006/1206_fournier.htm Accessed 20th July 2009

–

Brandon Hall Research, domain analysts for the e-learning industry and providers of  information about tools, technologies, and best practices related to employee training and enterprise learning have just released a comprehensive new guide called Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase 2009: A Buyer’s Guide to 120+ of the Best E-Learning Content Development Applications.

According to their press release, "the current edition of this online, database-driven KnowledgeBase contains 10-20 page profiles of 122 content development tools" including:

• 65 products to create online courses
• 26 products to create online tests and assessments
• 20 products to create software simulations
• 23 products to help you convert your legacy content to e-learning
• 9 products to create non-software simulations
• 8 products to create instructional games

They also include two online software applications:

• A selection tool that helps you narrow your product search by filtering out the tools that don’t meet your needs
• A comparison tool to help you see how two similar products differ

I recently published an article called What’s on your e-learning bookshelf? In it, I listed my shelf of “go to” e-learning texts. I’ve re-published the picture of my shelf below, so that you can see, right there in the middle, a text called E-learning Tools and Technologies by Horton and Horton.

In the early part of this decade learning and development professionals and educators found this text to be an invaluable reference resource. If you had a requirement to understand a new training modality or learning channel in a hurry (as many of us did in five or six years ago as we faster, better, and more integrated communications networks burgeoned) the Horton and Horton text was a good place to begin to find out about it. However, as we reach the end of the decade, the tools and some of the technologies in text (I have the first edition) is looking decidedly dated; Blogger.com was still owned by Pyra Labs; podcasting is not given a look-in in any shape or form. As far as I could discern through a brief search (on Amazon, Wiley Books Online, and Google Books), the 2003 edition is still in print.

The outcome of this is that while the text is still full of good advice, useful information, and valuable insight into topics associated with e-learning design, development and delivery, many  of the products it highlights are deprecated (Authorware), redundant (GoLive), or changed beyond recognition (most products featured in the text). In my view this is where resources like the Brandon Hall KnowledgeBase come into their own. While, necessarily, the text and the information is not as rich as in the Horton and Horton book (see Figure 1 for a comparison between the layout of the two resources), it’s competitive advantage is that is delivers bang up-to-date, regularly refreshed information, and a easy-to-use selection and comparison utility to choose and compare products.

Figure 1. Side-by-side of the texts: Horton (l), Brandon Hall (r)
[Click to enlarge]

In one sense, this is the threshold between the analog and digital forms of information delivery. Putting my cultural anthropology hat on for a moment, I would characterize this as a liminal state. Liminality has been described as "the place in between" (La Shure, 2009)  infused with ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy.

For example, as a university lecturer delivering a course on learning technology do I include E-Learning Tools and Technologies on the required reading list, or the more up-to-date Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase? How do I set a question on the information in the latter source as it is in one sense, just a list and description of products and their capabilities, with none of the context provided by the former text? Which is more "academic?" Does this reflect the text’s accuracy? Is the cost ($795 annual subscription) of Brandon Hall membership justifiable for students, or people who just was occasional access to information, as opposed to about $40 for the out-of-date Horton and Horton text. How much is the information worth?

These are  difficult questions to answer satisfactorily.

I have no doubt that over time, e-texts will become integrated into the mainstream of academic, professional, and consumer activity. Online libraries like MyAthens already provide access to a range of electronically-available materials for a nominal fee to the individual user as membership to institutions, universities, and libraries.

E-readers like the Kindle, and e-book software like Lexcycle Stanza (recently purchased by Amazon) are beginning to provide the facility to view electronic versions of printed texts.

Maybe this electronic means of access will become more generalized; I use Stanza on my iPhone and it’s changing my reading habits. Perhaps the current practice of hard- and e-texts being used in concert will become firmly embedded as the most effective method of using the old and the new. As usual, people will do what works for them, and the usual rules for adoption of innovations will apply.

Yet the question remains: How out-of-date is too out-of-date?

I think that my Horton printed text still has great value, especially in the context it provides for e-elearning-related technologies; yet I can’t rely on it to provide current information about specific e-learning authoring applications. With over ten years experience in the learning and development industry, I feel competent to apply my well-developed critical faculties to find out what I need from the range of knowledge and information at my disposal. Could I make my tacit, hard-earned ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information available to some-one else? Probably not.

How do you use the resources at your disposal? I’d love to hear your views and about your experiences – let me know.

___________

References:

Brandon Hall Research. (2009). Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase 2009: A Buyer’s Guide to 120+ of the Best E-Learning Content Development Applications. [Internet] Available from: http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications/atkb/atkb.shtml Accessed 29 June 2009

Horton, W., & Horton, K. (2003). E-learning Tools and Technologies: A consumer’s guide for trainers, teachers, educators, and instructional designers. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

La Shure, C. (2009). Liminality. [Internet] Available from: http://www.liminality.org/about/whatisliminality/ Accessed 29 June 2009

–

In the meantime, the eLearning Guild have just published an informative primer called Making a Demonstration Video for E-Learning Use.

The article in Learning Solutions e-Magazine discusses a favorite of mine: straight-forward ‘How-to’ video demonstrations. The authors, Steve Haskin and Tim Martin describe this learning modality:

“How-to” instruction is an important training modality; in fact, “learning how to do things” is the cornerstone of being human. Our lives are spent learning how to do things, and this doesn’t stop simply because we “learn” in the workplace or even when we slip the “e-” in front of learning.

(p.2)

In this context then, tasks and activities can be elucidated using a number of video based approaches including:

• Sequenced still images
• Video
• 3-D animation

Video photography is basically light captured on a medium like film, video tape, or DVD. However, lighting a subject properly is something of a black art and if done poorly will undermine the learners’ ability to interact with the subject matter. The article’s authors discuss the basics of lighting in reasonably good detail, including key-, fill-, and back lighting, as well as color temperature, and new lighting technologies like fluorescent and LED light types.

They go on to describe the importance of a good tripod, and what you should look for in a video camera. I would agree with their assertion that HD cameras “are complete overkill” (p.7) and in fact that good old reliable MiniDV digital tape is still the best video media choice for e-learning practitioners – your content is captured as uncompressed DV-AVI video (so it can be edited and rendered in either NTSC or PAL as well as in various compressed formats), and MiniDV is a great archive format.

The authors conclude by discussing the pros and cons of various video codecs, their benefits and disadvantages.

Video can seem technical, overly-involved, and even intimidating to the novice videographer: I suggest that you have a look at the article if you want a good introduction to video for e-learning and if you want to know your blondes from your redheads. (They’re types of light: I wasn’t being rude!)

______________

References:

Haskin, S., Martin, T. (2009) Making a Demonstration Video for E-Learning Use. Learning Solutions e-Magazine [Internet] Available from: http://www.elearningguild.com/articles/abstracts/index.cfm?id=302&action=viewonly Accessed 30 March 2009

–

How do you insert markers and how do you synchronize with captivate slides?

So over the next few days I’m going to outline the process of using markers in audio files, and how these markers can be used to simplify the process of synchronizing audio narration with visual content in presentations created not only in Captivate, but also in Presenter too.

Now read on…

In this post, I am going to focus on using audio markers in Sony Sound Forge, a professional sound-editing program or non-linear editor (NLE). The Sound Forge audio editing suite is the most powerful in a range of audio editing programs owned by Sony and originally developed by Sonic Foundry. I have been using Sound Forge in one form or another since the late 1990’s and in my view, it is the most flexible and adaptable tool in the audio editing market space (see Figure 1). Sound Forge includes a diverse and powerful set of digital audio signal processing tools, as well as many effects for manipulating audio.

Many e-learning professionals use other NLEs (including the open source program Audacity) to create and produce their audio. I would recommend any of the tools I mention in this article as acceptable for audio content creation.

Figure 1. Sound Forge waveform editor UI (click to enlarge)

Sound Forge software allows you to edit, record, encode, and master nearly all forms of digital audio including WAV, AIFF, and MP3. According to the Sound Forge website, the application has tools for:

• Sound Design and Mastering
• Stereo and Multichannel Recording
• Audio Editing and Workflow
• Powerful Effects Processing
• Audio-for-Video
• Dolby Digital AC-3 export

I’m not going to discuss the fundamentals of audio editing here, but we can say that to a great extent, audio editors are like ‘word processors for sound.’ All the good ones, including Steinberg WaveLab, Audacity and Adobe Audition employ the same user paradigm, and as a result the features of one are pretty much replicated in all the others. 

In audio editing, the purpose of a marker is to highlight a specific moment or event on the timeline so that you can return to it later. You may want to highlight a extraneous noise like a cough or click for deletion, or mark two points in a selection to copy or remove it. In audio narration, markers are typically used to set the transition between two sentences, slides or  onscreen event (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Sound Forge marker (click to enlarge)

Using Sound Forge

Some basics…

Opening a File

Sound Forge can edit WAV, MP3, AIFF and a range of other file types. To open a file, just click FILE-> OPEN. The file will open in either mono or stereo, depending on the specific file format.

Controlling Playback

Open a sound file. Use all of the buttons highlighted in Figure 1 (don’t forget to zoom in and out).

Selecting Sounds

Its easy to select a particular sound area. Just click and drag over it. If selecting a stereo sound, drag between the left and right channel to get them both (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Click and drag to select audio – stereo instance (click to enlarge)  

You Try:

1. Practice selecting areas of the wave.
2. Adjust the selection by dragging at the point where the selection ends.
3. Play the selection.
4. Copy and paste the selection to the end of the sound
5. Delete sections by selecting them and hitting delete on your keyboard.

You can also select in smaller segments (right down to the single bit level) by holding SHIFT on your keyboard and using the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys. The more you zoom in to the waveform, the higher the level of precision you can achieve.

 

Markers

Markers enable you to choose edit points and to help you to accurately events in the waveform timeline. To add a marker:

1. Click a point in the waveform.
2. Select SPECIAL >> INSERT MARKER from the menu, or press the M key

If you have many markers in your audio file, it’s useful to name them. It’s typical for audio narration for e-learning presentations to have many slides or events, and by extension quite a number of markers. I suggest that you name the markers for the slide or event that the following narration describes. To name a marker, right-click  its handle and select EDIT… (see Figure 4). Enter some appropriate text in the dialog box – here, I have called the marker "Course Outline."

Figure 4. The Edit Marker dialog box (click to enlarge) 

Marker Navigation

You can automatically navigate from marker to marker by pressing CTRL + LEFT ARROW to go back, or CTRL + RIGHT ARROW to move forward through the timeline.You can select the waveform between markers by pressing SHIFT + CTRL + LEFT / RIGHT arrow.

You Try:

Using your sound editor of choice, try out the activities described in today’s blog post. Click the link to download a fully functional 30-day trial version of Sound Forge.

 

Saving Markers

Markers are automatically included when you save your audio file. Some professional audio editors also enable you to save the markers as metadata in a separate file called an Edit Decision List (EDL) which is useful when you’re creating video presentations, but that as they say, is another story…

Next: Using markers with Adobe Presenter.
Soon: Using markers with Adobe Captivate.

–

Technorati Tags: Adding Markers,Adobe Captivate,Elearning,E-Learning,Audio,Narration,Content,Captivate,Adobe Presenter,Sound Forge

[Click for large PDF of image]

• Designing Web-based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime
• Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development
• E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age
• E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning
• Designing World-Class E-Learning
• Classic Drucker
• E-Learning Strategies: How to Get Implementation and Delivery Right First Time
• Michael Allen’s Guide to E-Learning
• Evaluation in Organizations: A Systematic Approach to Enhancing Learning, Performance and Change
• Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels (3rd Ed.)
• E-Learning Tools and Technologies
• Integrating Educational Technology and Teaching (4th Ed)
• Managing Organizations
• Real World Research (2nd Ed.)
• Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press
• How To Research
• Interaction Design Beyond Human Computer Interaction
• E-Learning Standards:A Primer for Using the Standards as Decision Support Tools
• Evaluating the performance impact of non-formal learning on knowledge workers in a Small-to-Medium Sized Enterprise (Unseen)

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We have been looking at both Camtasia and Captivate for our online development. My question is if you have  knowledge of ANY Apple compatible capturing software with the same capabilities of Camtasia and Captivate? Or if either Adobe or Techsmith ever plan on making this available to the Apple community?

Two great questions centered around the notion that there is no screencasting killer app for the Mac. Now, I have a Intel-chip MacBook (it also runs Windows using Boot Camp), but I use Windows PCs for learning content development and production – it’s a work / life balance thing. As a result, I have never really considered the options for e-learning authoring on the Mac before now. But since I was asked, here’s my two cents worth… 

There are a number of choices. First, you could run the programs you’re evaluating (TechSmith Camtasia or Adobe Captivate) on a Mac with Windows / Boot Camp, but my view would be given the processing resources needed to generate content in a native Windows environment, running them via a virtual machine would be to enter a world of pain I’m not prepared to contemplate: there are too many links in the chain; it’s too risky. Murphy’s Law says that on a death march project with a deadline looming, the the authoring environment would not be up to the task, regardless of how well it behaved prior to to that.

With that option rejected let’s look at the other choices available for the MacOS. To answer my correspondent’s  second question first, it seems that TechSmith are looking at a mid-2009 release for the Mac version of Camtasia. Click here to view a screencast about the latest developments in this product.

 Camtasia for the Macintosh is soon to be a reality 

Not so good, I’m sad to say for Adobe fans. According to The Apple Blog there are currently no plans to bring it to the Mac. When questioned, the Adobe development team responded:

Captivate is built from a program that ties deeply into the core Windows. To bring it to the Mac would require a total rewrite, something that we’re not sure we can justify at this point. If we had significant interest from Mac users, it’d be a different story.

If you want to register your interest in a Mac version of Captivate, click here to let Adobe know via their feature request form.

Next to the the third of the “Big Three” rapid e-learning development authoring tools, Articulate similarly does not support MacOS natively. However, in a very comprehensive post here, guest blogger Jim Gritton (co-founder of GB Learning Consultancy) discusses

Parallels Desktop for Mac, followed by CrossOver Mac and now VMware Fusion. Both Parallels and Fusion are Windows emulators: they use virtualization technology to allow you to run Windows as a virtual machine alongside the Mac operating system, as you can see from the screenshot below:

While it may seem contradictory that I discuss an emulator here, Articulate is a little different, in that it can interact with Mac-native KeyNote-created presentations and even integrates with the Mac Dock (via Parallels).

Obviously more optimistic than me (see Death March above) Jim asserts that:

If you’re wondering about my set-up, I’m currently running Parallels Desktop with Windows XP on a 20-inch, all-in-one iMac, sporting a 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo Processor, 1 GB memory and a 240 GB hard disk. This isn’t the fastest or most powerful Mac on the block, but it isn’t the slowest, either. I’m not going to pretend that running Windows applications using Parallels is as fast as running Mac applications natively on my iMac, but it’s no slouch. Nor has it let me down.

One approach that seems to me to have some potential is CrossOver Mac, which builds on the open-source implementation of the Windows API, Wine. This enables Unix-based operating systems (like Mac OS X and Linux) to run Windows applications “natively.” Hmmm… might look in to this myself, but it breaks my “Macs are for fun” work / life balance rule, in a thin-end-of-the-wedge kind of way…

What are we left with? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

In terms of native MacOS screencasting Mac, the evidence of my research suggests that Telestream’s ScreenFlow is the most popular application.

ScreenFlow Export wizard screenshot

According to their website ScreenFlow includes:

In the multiplatform world, Qarbon’s offering ViewletBuilder seems to have potential. This product seems to have some powerful e-learning features including LMS integration.

Qarbon’s ViewletBuilder

According to Qarbon, the product’s highlights are:

• Create and publish Flash tutorials and simulations in minutes
• Expand the reach of your online marketing with interactive slideshows and presentations
• Develop and deliver powerful, dynamic courseware without programming
• Capture detailed viewer responses with quizzes, tests, surveys and polls
• Seamlessly share Projects amongst Authors
• Integrate your content with your organization’s learning management system (LMS)
• Benefit from its multi-platform solutions Windows, Linux & Mac

From the open source world SWF Tools is also available for the Mac. SWF Tools is a collection of SWF manipulation and creation utilities written by Rainer Böhme and Matthias Kramm. It is released under the GPL.
Features included are:

• PDF2SWF A PDF to SWF Converter. Generates one frame per page. Enables you to have fully formatted text, including tables, formulas etc. inside your Flash Movie. It’s based on the xpdf PDF parser from Derek B. Noonburg.
• SWFCombine A tool for inserting SWFs into Wrapper SWFs. (Templates) E.g. for including the pdf2swf SWFs in some sort of Browsing-SWF.
• SWFStrings Scans SWFs for text data.
• SWFDump Prints out various informations about SWFs.
• JPEG2SWF Takes one or more JPEG pictures and generates a SWF slideshow.
• PNG2SWF Like JPEG2SWF, only for PNGs.
• GIF2SWF Converts GIFs to SWF. Also able to handle animated gifs.
• WAV2SWF Converts WAV audio files to SWFs, using the L.A.M.E. MP3 encoder library.
• AVI2SWF Converts AVI animation files to SWF. It supports Flash MX H.263 compression. Some examples can be found at examples.html.
  Font2SWF Converts font files (TTF, Type1) to SWF.
• SWFBBox Allows to readjust SWF bounding boxes.
• SWFC A tool for creating SWF files from simple script files.
• SWFExtract Allows to extract Movieclips, Sounds, Images etc. from SWF files.
• RFXSWF Library A fully featured library which can be used for standalone SWF generation. Includes support for Bitmaps, Buttons, Shapes, Text, Fonts, Sound etc. It also has support for ActionScript using the Ming ActionCompiler.

SWFTools has been reported to work on Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, HP-UX, MacOS X and Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista.

If you want to experiment with a ‘lite’ authoring environment for the Macintosh, try free-to-use Jing (by TechSmith).

• Screenshot still image capture
• Record onscreen video
• Share instantly over the Web (FTP), IM, e-mail
• Audio Narration

Jing lacks many features that proprietary screencasting software has, including local saves, multiple output types, and delivery formats, but it’s free to use, so a restricted function set should be expected. Once content is captured and saved, a URL for the file is automatically created and can be shared with others to view or access.

So there you have it. A whistle-stop tour of content capture and rapid e-learning authoring tools for the Mac. I would be very interested to hear how Mac users fare with these applications, or can suggest any others that are used in this context on the MacOS platform. What really surprises me is that there aren’t more tools already, after all, the Mac is the doyen of the digital media development industry and I would have thought that the tools available for e-learning development would reflect this preference for the platform. But that’s another story.

NOTE WELL:

Given the number of positive comments I have made about TechSmith recently, I want to emphasize that I am in no way associated with them, and that the purpose of this blog is not to showcase or cheerlead any commercial interest. It just happens at the moment they seem to make the most effective tools in this market space. I would suggest to their competitors that they step up to the mark and compete with applications that really meet the needs of learning and development practitioners and I will certainly be pleased to discuss their solutions in positive terms. Equally, should anyone fall short of the mark (MPEG4  or FLV, anyone?) I will highlight it on the E-Learning Curve Blog with no prejudice.

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As you’ll know if you’re a regular reader of the E-Learning Curve Blog, I use a range of content authoring tools to create elearning courseware. Primus inter pares is Camtasia by TechSmith. About two weeks ago, I downloaded and installed the trial version of Camtasia 6, which is a little unusual for me; in the past I have just bought the upgrade as soon as it was released.

This time it was a different: I heard discomfiting rumors over the Net that the functionality profile had changed, specifically that FLV had been replaced with MPEG4 as the asynchronous video streaming format in v6 of the product. As someone who relies on Adobe Connect to deliver much of my content to learners this was not good news, as Connect’s support for MPEG4 isn’t great. With this bit of news in mind, I decided to download the Cam6 trial to evaluate the latest version of the product.

As part of the evaluation experience, TechSmith’s Adam Stevenson contacted me (and a lot of other users no doubt) to ask me to contribute my experiences using the trial version of the product. Info is collected on a daily basis using a simple Google Docs form, and it enables TechSmith to capture users’ experiences with the trial including rants, raves and anything else you want to tell them. I think this is a very positive (and obvious and sensible) way for software development companies to be in connected to their current and potential customer base. In my view, their approach enables the development of a virtuous cycle between user and software provider which has the potential to benefit both parties – and ultimately learners, who should be the focus of our activities.

In the past, my experience has led me to be cynical of “we care a lot” exercises by organizations – sometimes I get the feeling that my well-considered comments end up filed in the circular file – you know, the one marked Trash, or worse in electronic limbo at the bottom of someone’s To Do list, never To Be Done.

So what’s different this time?

Check out this post by TechSmith’s Betsy Weber on the removal of FLV:

We’ve been listening to your feedback on our Forums, through our product feedback form, Twitter, Facebook, and via email. And, one of the things we heard after releasing Camtasia Studio v6 was that you wanted us to put back in support for the FLV video file format.

Well, I’m happy to report that we plan to release an update to Camtasia Studio as soon as possible and we will put back the FLV option. Our goal is to have Camtasia Studio v6.0.2 available to you by March. There will still be support for MPEG-4 in Camtasia Studio as well.

I think that, my friends is what we call a win-win situation.

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