Need advice on learning and testing software

[BeTheDance]

I'm totally new here and was wondering if I could get some advice.

I'm needing to setup some learning and testing software--a variety of courses--that I want to emulate online traffic school software in the overall approach.

• assuring the user sits through the course
• has a basic understanding of the material
• watches the required videos
• is exposed to more complex content

The net result will be a certification. Is this software the way to go or is there something else out there to look at?

Any guidance, greatly appreciated.

[RichardJCampbell]

Originally Posted by BeTheDance

I'm totally new here and was wondering if I could get some advice.

I'm needing to setup some learning and testing software--a variety of courses--that I want to emulate online traffic school software in the overall approach.

• assuring the user sits through the course
• has a basic understanding of the material
• watches the required videos
• is exposed to more complex content

The net result will be a certification. Is this software the way to go or is there something else out there to look at?

Any guidance, greatly appreciated.

You need a LMS like Articulate Online or Blackboard or Moodle to facilitate some of what you want.

[beeneeb]

Hi BeTheDance and welcome to the forums,

Please see my response below each of your inquries:

assuring the user sits through the course

This can be handled through locking slides or using a restricted navigation. For more information, see the links below:

(See the "Lock" section in this link): Managing Slide Properties – Articulate Presenter ’09 Help

(See "Restricted" in this link): Navigation – Articulate Presenter ’09 Help

has a basic understanding of the material

This can be done by placing Quizmaker quizzes throughout your presentation. For more information, see the link below:

Inserting as Slide – Articulate Presenter ’09 Help

watches the required videos

This can be accomplished by using a restricted navigation or locking the slide as mentioned above.

is exposed to more complex content

As the user gets deeper and deeper into the content, you can make the content more complex by using your creativity. Here's a cool example using Quizmaker '09:



For more information on that particular quiz, see the link below:

Urban Legends Quiz - Source Files

For more tutorials, see the link below:

Community Tutorials - Articulate – Word of Mouth Blog

[BeTheDance]

Thanks for the feedback so far.

I greatly appreciate this.

I'd like to say that this project has the potential to be quite huge with MASSIVE public exposure in the long run.

I'm a web developer and use Joomla for all of my sites. I'll probably start this project on Joomla until it outgrows it.

I'm a little hesitant to go into the project details, but quite frankly, since learning systems are NOT my area of expertise, I really do need some significant help/guidance.

So, here it is.

If anyone here lives in San Francisco, you might know what I'm talking about.

So, I'm putting together a non-profit organization comprised of a coalition of different pet rescue organizations and other animal welfare advocates (vets, etc). This project was accepted for a 5-month trial as an alternative to a ban on the sale of pets in pet stores in SF to reduce the overpopulation of pets in the shelters.

I also run a well-known guinea pig rescue.

I've had this idea of a program in mind for years, but due to circumstances, we've got a shot at making it work.

The various pet experts in this organization (all volunteers) will be putting together the curriculum and tests for their animals (cats, dogs, birds, etc) within the guidelines established by our new organization.

I absolutely want to emulate the traffic school model from a variety of aspects: level of education, alternative delivery mechanisms (in person, on-line, mailed CDs, etc), easy user experience, etc.

The prospective pet owner signs up to take a class on say guinea pigs to earn their certificate to present to the pet store (or rescue or shelter) to buy a guinea pig. The pet store will only sell animals to a consumer if a valid certificate is presented.

So, a guinea pig course, might be a couple of hours, just as an example. An Amazon Parrot course might be over 8 hours. It will depend on what the experts for that animal deem appropriate while achieving the overall goals of our organization.

CHALLENGE: I need a collaborative way for volunteers of varying degrees of skill to either create their own content OR submit roughly created content and exam questions to be finalized technically by someone in the organization.

CHALLENGE: Initially, costs will need to be low. We haven't formed the organization yet and don't have funding -- yet. As soon as possible, it will be a 501(c)(3).

CHALLENGE: The education platform needs to be as diverse as possible. In doing more reading on the possibilities, I'm a little concerned about a flash-based solution (eliminating iPads, etc).

CHALLENGE: Reporting and a certification process are very important. I was kind of assuming custom code would need to be developed for our Cert process.

CHALLENGE: I need to be able to support the education in multiple languages.

CHALLENGE: The course content will need to be easy to modify and maintain, as it will surely change over time.

CHALLENGE: I really some kind of working model in pretty short order, so I'm thinking of phases of sophistication.

My vision is that if we get this working well enough in SF, it will be adopted pretty quickly on a volunteer basis by a number of 'consumers' across the country and others will follow suit.

I also would like at least three levels of certification for each course: Certified, Trainer, and Expert.

I can be contacted at teresa@cloudqueen.com directly (if that's against forum rules, please edit) and if anyone is interested in looking at the powerpoint presentation for this program, it's available at PowerPoint Presentation - The Education Alternative.

I'm not sure if that info changes any of the above recommendations or guidance.

When I initially saw Articulate, I thought 'cool,' but I really need a more online, collaborative solution I think. We can't afford the licenses for each author, and I doubt that I'll be able to count on the skill level needed for the volunteers. Bummer.

Thanks again for any help.

[beeneeb]

Hi BeTheDance,

I think that your needs are pretty typical when you think of them in terms of elearning. You would probably have the volunteers build a rough version of the content in PowerPoint & then hand them over to a developer that can make them more appealing & incorporate some cool stuff like I mentioned before. In this scenario, your volunteers would develop only in PowerPoint & the developer would be the only that has a license for Articulate. This should minimize your cost in the beginning.

I think that all of your requirements could be handled with a combination of Articulate software & an LMS like Articulate Online or Moodle pretty easily. I would recommend that you contact someone with a lot of experience with the Articulate software to "hold your hand" during the beginning. I don't like to name-drop, but Jenise Cook is one of the first people that come to my mind:

https://twitter.com/jenisecook

In regards to the iPad issue, Articulate only publishes to Flash at this time. However, one of our customers came up with a great solution that can be found here

Low bandwidth HTML #Articulate player w/Audio (reports to LMS too!) | Frame; Entered.

[BeTheDance]

Hi Beeneeb,

That's encouraging. I'll keep investigating and thanks for the referrals.

Cheers!

[Jenise_RidgeViewMedia.com]

Hi Teresa / BeTheDance

What a great idea you're developing.

The first solution that "screams" out at me is what Tom Kuhlmann emphasizes in the Articulate Rapid eLearning blog: Use Templates

To meet each one of your Challenges, and the volunteer Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) might feel constrained by this, but they'll get used to it is.... to design/develop a standard content template in PowerPoint for all of your SMEs to use, no matter the animal and the duration (hours) of that particular course.

Think "plug and play"... your SMEs will have defined blocks on PPT screens, Engage interactions, and/or Quizmaker quizzes where they will input content (words), and then they'll have defined blocks where they can insert multimedia. Your organization can brainstorm with the SMEs to get their ideas and give them a feeling of ownership or buy in as well. And, you can get the collaboration up front before the development starts.

Believe me, from experience and black-and-blue marks, you will be grateful to get that collaboration up front during discussions on what your PPT template will look like. Once the design is approved, then you all can blast ahead at full speed.

I'm familiar with non-profits and their (lack of) budgets, so the PPT template approach will help save you money in the long run.

What will your PPT/Engage/QM templates look like? Bryan has given you a list of links to great design ideas. You can select on screen look-and-feels from those examples.

(And, I'm humbled that Brian thought of me. There are many, many talented IDs who develop courseware using Articulate Studio '09. Bryan, "the check's in the mail.")

David Anderson ( @elearning on Twitter ) has great experience with working in the "template" world. I'm going to send him this thread link to see if he can chime in as well.

[BeTheDance]

Hi Jenise,

Yes, I was wondering about templates. I would definitely want the final look to be as templated as possible so the developer will have to do as little work and clean up as possible. I was going to see how much of the articulate components could be templated or automated. For example, rather than just typing questions, is there a plugin or something to help automate that process? I just haven't researched it yet.

Good suggestion on the getting the buyin for the template look. I'll be trying to do that as much as possible on everything about this program. The only downside is it slows me down a little on my normal 'full speed ahead' approach. But clearly, collaboration and buy-in is one of the keys to success in this project.

I went and looked at your twitter account and got sidetracked by some of the links. Elluminate looks quite cool. I'm tired of webex.

Also, I USED to be a PC bigot, but due to a hard disk crash late last year, was finally arm-twisted into trying a Mac. Oh my gosh. I can't believe I waited this long--although that was probably a good thing for various software packages that I use. My productivity has shot through the roof on a Mac. Quite amazing. So far, I've avoided having to install windows on it, but it looks like I'll have to bite the bullet and use Parallel to use Articulate.

Would appreciate additional template advice.

[Jenise_RidgeViewMedia.com]

Originally Posted by BeTheDance

Hi Jenise,

Also, I USED to be a PC bigot, but due to a hard disk crash late last year, was finally arm-twisted into trying a Mac. Oh my gosh. I can't believe I waited this long--although that was probably a good thing for various software packages that I use. My productivity has shot through the roof on a Mac. Quite amazing. So far, I've avoided having to install windows on it, but it looks like I'll have to bite the bullet and use Parallel to use Articulate.

Would appreciate additional template advice.

(One moment, Teresa, ehem.... Hey Articulate! Another MAC CONVERT! We want our Articulate for the Mac version! Feature request! Feature Request!)

Teresa, LOL, we Mac users have been clamoring for our Mac version for quite awhile.

I did reach out and ping a couple of Template experts after I first replied. I hope they will have time to join the discussion on this thread.

[DavidAnderson]

Hi - Welcome to the forums Teresa.

You're asking some really great questions. In addition to Brian and Jenise's comments, here are some more thoughts:

has a basic understanding of material:

Another option is to create two learning tracks similar to this example:
Using Communication Tools at Christian Aid

You could emphasize the performance-based track while still offering a remedial track for extra info.

Tom has two recent posts on that project:

1. Build Effective E-Learning Courses Using These Simple Tips The Rapid eLearning Blog
2. Three Sure-Fire Tips to Build Better E-Learning Courses The Rapid eLearning Blog

Required to watch videos

Here are a couple screencasts on ways to use Quizmaker to require learners view in-course videos:

CHALLENGE: I need a collaborative way for volunteers of varying degrees of skill to either create their own content OR submit roughly created content and exam questions to be finalized technically by someone in the organization.

This goes on all the time with Articulate-based design teams. Because PowerPoint is ubiquitous across organizations, groups can leverage pre-designed templates to guide their content development. Usually a lead designer or some type of centralized model will oversee externally-developed content to ensure consistency and adherence to basic standards.

I'd be happy to continue this idea with you if you're interested. But first, how do templates work?

If you're working in PPT2007 or 2010, you have a lot of control of content layout and positioning. Here are two quick screencasts on setting up and working with custom Slide Masters:





That's a lot of info so hopefully it's not too much up front. The thing I'd also add is to start small and scale your learning models up. Get comfortable with the basics and add new ideas to your foundation. The one thing that Articulate makes really easy is redesign. The more you learn the more you'll want to tweak and enhance your projects. They're always a work in progress when they're personal like what your'e working on.

David