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E-Learning Challenges
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Screencasts and Software Simulations in Online Training #19

DavidAnderson's avatar
11 years ago

Challenge of the week

This week your challenge is to record a screencast or software simulation. You can choose any type of topic that interests you.

Tools

You can use Articulate Storyline, Screenr, or Replay to record your screencasts. And any other tools you want—we really just want to see your examples.

Resources

Last week’s characters in e-learning challenge

E-learning designers have a lot of character and you showed a lot of creative faces over the past week. Before you screencast this week’s blockbuster training movies, check out the trailers from last week’s e-learning character challenge:

Note:

The weekly challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. We’ll feature your work and provide feedback if you request it.

Hope your week is screencastic, E-Learning Heroes!

Even if you’re using a trial version of Studio ’13 or Storyline, you can absolutely publish your challenge files. Just sign up for a fully functional, free trial, and have at it. And remember to post your questions and comments in the forums; we're here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.

Published 11 years ago
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  • It occurred to me I should share the screenrs I did to explain how to customize my German drinking game template here - that was a challenge!

    To learn about some basic best practices before recording them I referred to several of the resources David lists above (though didn't know he had them here - I googled to find them), and those helped quite a bit.

    The biggest challenges were:
    (1) Struggling to overcome the Java issues with Screenr. That took a lot of time and energy to resolve and was frustrating, but I figured it out.
    (2) Timing them to come in under five minutes. You'll notice some mighty quick wrap-ups at the finishing line. :)
    (3) Controlling audio quality.
    (4) Not being able to do audio/video edits.

    Only after I'd done these did I realize it wasn't necessary to do them in Screenr (which would have eliminated most of these issues) - and next time I'll use something else.

    So here's my belated-yet-hard-won entry for this challenge. You can access the screenrs in this blog post about them: http://www.jackievannice.com/?p=175064358
  • I'm disappointed there aren't any examples of interactive software simulations, only screencasting. I'm not sure if Storyline offered that option at the time of this challenge. I primarily design simulations in my work using Adobe Captivate. I'd like to see an example of how designers are developing them in Storyline.
    • DavidAnderson's avatar
      DavidAnderson
      Staff
      Hi Amanda - We'll revisit this challenge! I was hoping for some more examples, too.

      We get a lot of requests for examples of engaging screencasts and simulations so I know it's something that's important to our users.

      It's been over a year since we did the screencast challenge so it's a good time to try this one again.
      • AntPugh's avatar
        AntPugh
        Community Member
        Hi David - did this ever happen? I'm also looking for some outstanding examples of the interactive software simulations created with Storyline. Do you know of any?
  • There's been interest in the Dallas User Group for this very topic, especially the software simulation in Storyline. Has anyone recently conquered this battle? We will be covering this topic in our August 5 meeting and may have space for an outside speaker (either live or pre-recorded).
    • DavidAnderson's avatar
      DavidAnderson
      Staff
      Hi Kimberly!

      Please extend an invitation to your group to share their examples in this challenge. Simulations is such a hot topic for users but really don't have a lot of examples. I'd really like to build up our screencast/simulation examples.
  • Sadly, I do not think our group has many to offer up either, hence searching outside of the group for a knowledgeable speaker. I may do something with a user guide that I'm building for our Salesforce team to try my hand at it. We shall see.