Solving technology problems, one at a time
IMPORTANT If you have never used the SCORM-ready learning module template before, please go back to Part 1: Features, Outline your Module to learn how to set it up correctly.
If you have a Captivate 4 file that refuses to generate any SCORM support files when publishing, check your Publish settings. Make sure that “Fullscreen” is not checked in the publishing settings. Then it will publish fine.
Since you are eliminating the Captivate generated code for maximizing the window, you may want to add that back in. To force the Captivate window to maximize to full-screen upon opening, add the following to the head of your published HTML file:
Continue readingCaptivate 5 has many bugs that have been complete showstoppers for my elearning projects. Among them, there is a problem with SCORM courses that get perpetually stuck on the gray “Loading…” screen. This is because
Continue readingScenario-based learning can teach decision-making and thinking processes. Here is an example of the “Labyrinth” scenario-based learning system created in a Scottish medical school which features low fidelity simulations created with just text and pictures – but with great effect.
Each page describes what’s going on and gives a choice of action.
Here you are a doctor doing rounds and a nurse comes in with news about a patient who is increasingly breathless. Your choice here is “Stick with the rounds” or “Ask to see the patient”
If you stick with the rounds, you start wondering if you are doing the right thing, and are soon brought back to the right track -going to see the patient.
Continue readingThis is a talk I gave recently to a group of educator/trainers within the U of M Health System. Although it contains many UMHS-specific references, the concepts outlined in it can be applied to other training environments as well. There’s nothing particularly original here, just some suggestions for how to select among different technologies commonly available. This was the first part of a two-part presentation. The second part featured tips for creating engagement and improving digital photography.
Our team has lots of tools you can use to create online training. There are so many choices, in fact, that it can be difficult to decide which to select when you’re starting a new project.
To help you sort through all the options, I’m going to give you some typical instructional situations and suggest tools that might best support them, without breaking the budget in the process. These are all things you can use – they don’t require a computer science degree to get a good result!
Continue readingOur LMS uses Java applets to transmit SCORM data back and forth between learning activity and the LMS. Sometimes this causes problems, because Java security on various browsers is increasingly strict. However we can usually
Continue readingAdobe Captivate, Articulate and Adobe Presenter can all add annoying clicking sounds or “pops” between slides when there is narration. These clicks often are associated with either picking up the actual mouse-click used to switch slides, are added in by the application by design, or added in as an audio artifact. The solutions vary depending on the application and cause.
Qualtrics is an online survey application with many capabilities that aren’t obvious at first glance. I’m currently using Qualtrics to create a feedback form that will be used in several hundred learning modules. This form needs to recognize from which learning module it’s being accessed, and it should determine the author of the module and email them a copy of the user’s feedback.
Qualtrics has a feature called “embedded data” which allows you to pass any arbitrary arguments in the link to the survey. We’ll use this to add metadata to the feedback.
There are three steps:
In trying to gain some understanding of collaboration patterns, I came across an interesting article that proposes a layered ontology or model of collaboration that reconciles the many ideas on collaboration patterns expressed elsewhere.
Towards an ontology of collaboration patterns proposes a “collaboration stack” which clarifies the relationship of collaboration patterns to collaborative services and to the underlying communication technologies.
Continue readingIf you need to sync Powerpoint slides to a lengthy pre-recorded audio file in Presenter, the choice of format for the audio file is important. Save audio files intended for import into Presenter in mp3
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