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Adobe Captivate 4 (and 3)
For years, software training was primarily text-based... paste a screen shot into a Word document, add some text with descriptions and instructions, and voila!
The results worked, but think how much more effective it could be to have someone actually “walk you through the steps” on the screen. That's where Captivate comes in, letting you create that “someone”.
Captivate lets you create simulations and CBT (Computer-Based Training) inexpensively and quickly. It lets you capture what's on the screen as you perform some software-based task, save those screen shots as a “filmstrip”, add explanatory and instructional captions, special effects, and interactivity features to make users think they're using the software, and play the result back as a “movie”. It's a deceptively simple but powerful tool that lets you create movies for use as demos, marketing presentations, role-playing simulations, tutorials, even fairly sophisticated eLearning. Those movies are also very flexible. They can run locally on users' PCs or from a network drive or web site. And, compared to most other CBT authoring tools, Captivate is quick and easy to learn and only costs about $800.
For example, the link below runs a little movie that:
- Shows how to use Windows' calculator to convert the base of a number, and explains what the different bases (hexadecimal, octal, decimal, and binary) are.
- Includes some interactivity features with feedback. In other words, if you don't click where the instructions tell you, you'll get a corrective message.
- Runs as part of a web site, a useful way to create a product demo that ran from your company's web site to serve as a pre-sales tool.
- Took a mere two hours to create. The introduction is a bit cheesy, the background is a bit messy, the timing and transitions are a bit rough, and the playback control bar is obscuring part of the application window, but these are minor problems that can be cleaned up in an hour or two, at most. In other words, you can create these movies fast!
Click here to run the movie in a separate window. When the movie ends, click the Back button at the left end of the browser toolbar to return to this web page.
This three-day (two-day for Captivate 3), hands-on seminar is aimed at trainers, training developers, marketing staff, disaster recovery personnel, and usability testers who need to quickly get up to speed on the mechanics, design, and planning required to create training movies using Captivate. The only prerequisites are a basic knowledge of Windows, Internet Explorer, and PC skills in general.
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| Course Overview | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What is Captivate? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sample Movies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Planning and Design | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Analysis | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Design | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Development | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Implementation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Workflow Review | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Captivate Overview and Screen Capture | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Overview of the Interface | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Setting Recording Options and Capturing Screens | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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