Learning Adobe Captivate – Coffeebeans: The Trainer and The Trainee – A Comic Capsule.

As you may have noticed, Creative Agni’s REDAC (Rapid eLearning Development with Adobe Captivate) certificate course rolled out on August 5th. Traditionally, I’ve always participated in the first rollouts of all the courses that we create and bring to you, except when I’m the one conducting the course.

Two Sundays into the program, I created a small linear interaction (“Coffeebeans – The Trainer & The Trainee,” a comic-capsule that features Coffeebeans and her owner Froth,) and I am feeling mighty proud of it.

Click the image to view the Comic Capsule.

I hope you like Coffeebeans – she’s one heck of a smart pup 🙂

Since Creative Agni’s Instructional Design and eLearning Courses are engineered to learning experiences that don’t just enable but empower, their learning goals aren’t about learning but about doing – and this is why I can already use a wide variety of Captivate’s tools. Barely past the third class, I can already use most of the menu items; use text and shapes; stylize and animate them; record (or import,) edit and use audio; use buttons and actions; create advance actions (this week I created a click and view interactive all on my own, using advance actions;) and use the timeline like I was born to use it.

In the weeks to come, I’ll be learning tons of other interesting stuff and will be able to create learning interactions, record and use simulations, use videos, create different types of quizzes, figure out the responsive content bit, etc. It’s an exhilarating ride and I’m glad to be a part of this very smart and enthusiastic group of participants.

Do visit the Creative Agni eZine site and check out the Coffeebeans Comic-capsule.

 

Pros and Cons of Rapid e-Learning

Have you been blinded by the glare of Rapid eLearning Products yet?

• Yes
• No

What’s your answer?

I know that it’s difficult to answer this question objectively.  Don’t worry – let’s begin by first looking at some of its obvious advantages.

Advantages of Rapid e-Learning:

Rapid e-learning has multiple advantages. Here are 3 important benefits of employing Rapid eLearning.

1. It can be produced by an SME-ID (Subject Matter Expert and Instructional Designer) team, thus trimming the development costs.
2. It can be quickly put together depending upon the need of the hour – and note that with the rapidly changing technologies, the learning needs are in a flux.
3. It can lead to standardization of eLearning content quality.

Rapid eLearning has the concept of the shrinking half-life of knowledge at its core – and it does help an organization benefit in the above three ways. Unfortunately, the obvious advantages of rapid e learning have led to its being employed for all kinds of content and all types of audiences.

Such indiscriminate use of rapid elearning tools, leads to certain disadvantages in the long-run.

Disadvantages of Rapid e-Learning:

Here are three serious issues with the use of Rapid eLearning.

1. The content begins to look stale after a few lessons, and loses the learner’s attention.
2. The best-possible instructional strategy is sidelined and the next possible one is applied! Thus, there’s a reduction in the learning effectiveness.
3. The overall loss of learning effectiveness kills the learner’s appetite for eLearning…because the learner doesn’t know that all eLearning isn’t rapid elearning.

It doesn’t matter how many interactivity templates a rapid eLearning product offers to you…and how different they look on the surface…internally they still are “templates”. I agree that there is content with little or no longevity, and that such content can use rapid eLearning to avoid the loss of precious time – but I don’t see how non-technical high-longevity content or its learners can benefit from rapid eLearning.

Using rapid eLearning tools all the time could be like eating burgers three times a day for the rest of your life. It’s fast to cook, easy to order – and it saves a lot of time…but you can’t eat it all the time…not if you want to live!