Online Class: Adobe Captivate

Adobe Captivate is a responsive authoring tool that allows you to create eLearning content, such as eLearning courses, software demonstrations, branched scenarios, games, quizzes, and screencasts.  The files you create in Adobe Captivate 9 can be exported to MP4 and played in media players, as well as uploaded to websites. 

This course will teach you skills you'll need to successfully use Adobe Captivate.   Each lesson contains step-by-step instructions written directions, full illustrations, and HD video tutorials and demonstrations to teach you how to use the program.  Each lesson builds on the next so that you see the program in-use and learn how to use it with the help of step-by-step instructions. 

You will learn how to:

·    Create new projects and open existing ones

·    Choose a theme for a project

·    Add slides

·    Add text captions

·    Record screenshots, demonstrations, assessments, and more

·    Add objects such as highlight buttons, rollover images, and rollover captions

·    Edit object styles

·    Add and edit images, characters, and other assets

·    Record and add audio and video to your projects

·    Create an add interactivity to your projects

·    Create quizzes

·    Publish your projects

·    And more

You do not need previous experience with Adobe Captivate to successfully complete this course.  This course will start with basic skills, then move forward to more advanced features and techniques.  In addition, you do not need access to the program to successfully complete the course either.  However, a free trial of Adobe Captivate is available on the Adobe website.

ELearning courses that you create in Captivate can contain as many features and interaction as you need to create the course you want.   Courses created in Captivate can include text, rollovers, clickable hotspots, quizzes, typing areas, special effects, audio, video, and the list goes on. Projects completed in Adobe Captivate can be published as Flash, HTML5, Word documents, PDF's, as well as videos.   They can be viewed on Mac or Windows and can be displayed on YouTube, a private server, Vimeo, mobile devices, and Adobe Reader.  

This course was designed to teach you skills you'll need to successfully use Adobe Captivate.   Each lesson contains step-by-step instructions and demonstrations to teach you how to use the program. Each lesson builds on the next so that you see the program in-use and learn how to use it with the help of step-by-step instructions. You don't need previous experience with Adobe Captivate to successfully complete this course. This course will start with basic skills, then move forward to more advanced features and techniques. 

Each lesson in this course is followed by a lesson exercise that contains multiple choice and true/false questions. These exercises are required and will determine your course grade.   You'll also find a lesson assignment at the end of each lesson.   Assignments are optional and do not factor into your course grade; however, if you have access to Adobe Captivate, it's highly encouraged that you complete them. The assignments were created to give you hands-on practice utilizing the skills you learned in the previous lesson. 

In addition to the exercises and assignments, you will also find a course project to work on as you complete the course. Instructions for the course project appear after the fourth, eighth, and eleventh lesson.   The course project is similar to the lesson assignments in that it is optional and contains hands-on practice.   However, the course project also gives you the chance to create your very first project in Captivate using step-by-step instructions. The project you will create give you the chance to put your new skills to work, as well as help you to become more comfortable using Captivate. 

When you need to create an eLearning course or any type of video that provides instruction, you have several options.   Years ago, the best way you could go was to use a screen recording program that would allow you to show viewers and students the content on your screen while you used your mouse to guide them through different aspects – and your voice to talk to and educate them. This was a primitive way to create online instructional content, and it also resulted in very large files.    

There were other problems as well.   The files you created on a Windows computer probably weren't compatible with the Mac.   Plus, they weren't interactive.   While you could show and tell things to your learners, you were not able to let them actually perform what you taught them to do.   If eLearning was truly to become of value, it needed to be more interactive, in addition to being compatible with multiple operating systems and devices.   It also needed to have reasonable file sizes so that they could be hosted on servers without having to wait until the next millennium for them to upload. That said, meet Adobe Captivate!