I’ve been an eLearning developer since 1997. I’ve been active in the Authorware community since 1998, and used to run the EuroTAAC conference in Europe. These days I’m an eLearniing Technologist for NASCO, in Atlanta. I blog about eLearning and all sorts of tech stuff that catches my eye.
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Hi Steve,
I did a search for Authorware User Group and came up with your name. Wonder if you can help me out with something or point me in the right direction?
I use AW7 and need to conform several existing elearning courses to Scorm 1.2. I’ve tried using the KOs, metadata editor and content packager, but with no luck. My LMS, Cornerstone on Demand, does not initiate. Is this something you can help me with?
A little background: I’m an elearning deisgner with First Tennesse Bank in Memphis. I’ve been using AW since 1998. I also use Flash and Lectora.
Thanks,
David
Sure I can help you. Probably just need to talk you through the steps. Email me – AuthorwareExpert at gmail dot com.
Hey Steve,
Looking to use e-learning suite, but have some questions about features and capabilities in the suite.
Seems that you are the guy with experience using this.
Is there a way we can contact you?
Thanks.
Peter
@Peter – responded privately.
Steve
Thanks for all the information you share! Do you do freelance work or can you recommend some sources. (I’m based in Atlanta but don’t need to work face-to-face).
We are launching a sales training business concentating on financial acumen. We purchased Adobe Captivate and can get a “rough” version incorporating our content. But, we’re finding it is taking us too long to figure out how to “clean” it up and make it look professional. Our clients will be large corporations so they expect it to look/function with more sophistication than we may be able to achieve on a timely basis.
Unfortunately, since we are just starting out, our budget is limited so we want to try to be “self-help” and get it started. That way, we hope we can get the biggest bang for our buck.
Any thoughts/suggestions on how to find someone reputable to do this for us on a freelance basis?
Steve,
I want to start using Captivate, but it seems it only comes in PC format.. I am a Mac user… what can I do?
All my adobe products are Mac. I do have Parallels, so I could get the PC version of Captivate, but will it interact with the Mac Adobe software?
Are there any plans for Adobe to cross this program over to Mac??
Sorry for all the questions!
Steve K
Karen, I occasionally do freelance work. Please mail me privately so we can talk further – steve at magnoliamultimedia dot com
Thanks
Steve
@Steve K
I believe I have a post on this blog somewhere that links to a request Adobe made several months ago for Captivate Mac beta testers. So currently Adobe appear to be developing and testing a Mac version. I can’t give you any information on when the Mac version might be available, but my guess it that it will probably be several months off.
Captivate uses standard file formats – PNG, PSD, JPG, Wav, MP3, SWF etc etc. Any files you create for Captivate on the Mac need to be treated the same as any other files destined for PC – make sure you give the files an appropriate file extension and all is good.
The only think you won’t be able to do is ‘full’ capture of Mac software. By that I mean, you should be able to record the screen and make movies like with Camtasia, but you wan’t be able to take advantage of Captivate’s ability to ‘see’ what you click on and automatically generate captions like “Click the File option” etc.
HTH
Steve
Hi Steve,
I just found your blog and am enjoying reading your entries. Like yourself, I was an Authorware user (minor league though) who had to give up that wonderful tool. I use Captivate as well to create branching simulations for academic subjects (I work for a college.) As much as I like making simple branching simulations, I just don’t think Captivate has the potential that Authorware had. I suspect this is why companies that have advanced resources use Flash (like Allen Interactions).
Do you see any tool that has the ease of use of Authorware or Captivate but with the interactive range and web-friendliness of Flash? I saw from one of your entries that Michael Allen seemed to be working on something.
There’s nothing like Authorware right now. Captivate has great potential but it’s going to be another generation or two before it begins to bloom. Meantime I’m using flash and flex to fill in the gaps in captivate.
Michael Allen’s tool is looking great but it is still in alpha. It promises to have much if the ease of use of tools like Authorware and captivate, but extending it will require more skill than Authorware needed.
“There’s nothing like Authorware right now. Captivate has great potential but it’s going to be another generation or two before it begins to bloom.”
Thats what I was afraid of. I was introduced to Authorware in 1997. It was a revelation that a non-programmer could make interesting e-learning. Authorware taught me to dream big.
It’s ironic. So many people are receptive to creating e-learning and using it more than ever before—and yet we don’t have an easily usable tool like we did 10 years ago.
Hey Steve,
Just found your blog while I was searching for a solution to text formatting in Captivate 4. Have you run into any problems with Captivate reformatting the text boxes in the Question Pools. If I resize the text box to fit larger strings of text, and then go in to edit the question again, some of my choices magically drop off the edge of the page and I can not recover them. This has happened on several projects and has caused me a lot of frustration. I haven’t found anyone posing any problems like this so I haven’t found a solution. Any ideas?
Annoyingly, some quiz types will reformat your question layout when you use the edit question dialogue. The matching question is the worst culprit. I try to avoid that dialog by editing/formatting text on screen and utilizing Afvanced Interaction dialog (press F9). I’ve not found a way to completely prevent the reformatting though.
Old Authorware programmer here that has since moved on to building customized Flash eLearning pieces. I saw you mentioned a new tool from Michael Allen. Where can I find information on that? Thank you in advance!
The tool is called Zebra. Here’s a short YouTube video about it, and more info below it.
http://info.alleninteractions.com/e-learning-authoring-research-blog/?Tag=Allen+Interactions+Zebra
If you contact Allen Interactions uyou may be able to get on the closed beta. Not sure.
Thanks Steve. I look forward to seeing if this tool actually makes it out to the market.
Hi,
I had few questions regarding captivate 4. If you can help, I would really appreciate it:
1) I created an eLearning project and it has some quiz sildes in them. So how do I collect the scores of the users who will go though that eLearning? ( I googled it but in most of the webpages they say just put a tick on report answers and also in the preferences enable reporting for this project) I tried using that but can`t see how to fetch the score for each users.
2) In the same eLearning I want to get feedback from the users who watch the eLearning. So basically I want a slide in which users can type in their feedback and then when they hit the submit button that feedback should be sent to a specific email. ( For this I tried using text box entry but all the text we enter in that comes in one line, we can`t press enter to change lines, also in the button I assign it to send an email to my lotus notes email id, but when I preview the project and click the button, it opens my lotus notes and it does not fetches what I have entered in the text box)