Pre-developed Templates! That’s the secret sauce! We have been making and using eLearning templates for years. If you need to quickly develop eLearning courses, using templates is the way to go.

I developed this entire course in about an hour!

In my example below I used Articulate, a rapid eLearning software that leaverages PowerPoint. I started off with a PowerPoint Course style template that I then customized to match my branding. I used a People Cutout series to give the course a friendly presenter that walks the learner through the training. Inserting some Flash interactions and a game helped make the course more engaging. The interactions and game were made at eLearning Interaction Builder. Finally, the course was published with a custom Articulate skin (player).

Here is a list of the prices and products used to develop this course:

• Articulate Presenter software
• $149 PowerPoint Course Style
• $40/month eLearning Interactions Builder subscription
• $150 People Cutout series
• $450 Articulate player skin

Are you ready to become an Articulate Ninja?

We just launched Articulate Training videos!

We are excited to announce our new Articulate Training Videos! Now you can sit at your desk and follow along as we show you how to use this software. Use the videos when you need them and use them for a quick refresher anytime.

• 10 “how-to” videos
• Unlimited viewing
• Access for the entire team
• Videos take you from building content to publishing
• Examples of how to use PowerPoint
• Ways to make more exciting content
• Get future videos for free

Videos Topics Included:

1. Articulate Overview
2. Master Slides in PowerPoint
3. Animation, Linking, Shapes in PowerPoint
4. Adding and Recording Narration
5. Sync Animations with Narration
6. Locking, Branching, and Slide Properties
7. Importing Quizmaker, Engage, and Flash
8. Player Templates
9. Presenters and Attachments
10. Publishing
11. (More coming soon!)

Check out our Articulate Presenter Training!

Are your courses stinky? Do you have boring PowerPoints? Try some “eLearning Deodorant” to stop the stink!

It doesn’t need to take a lot of time and money to create better courses. It just takes a bit of inspiration…not perspiration.

Here are some quick and easy tips to make your content pages more interesting. You can also see them in action at the end of this post.

Visually “tie” your main concept to separate components. Each one can appear individually or all at once.

Take your main topics and/or key points and put them in BIG TEXT. Have the text appear/fade throughout the slide. Let the learner focus on one thing at a time.

Just cover up your slide when you want to make an important statement. I use a 50% transparent box and then animate in my key point.

Why create boring lists? Is fairly quick to animate elements in separately.

Don’t tell the whole story at once. Cover the various parts of the slide and then only reveal the part that you’re talking about.

What other techniques do you use?

Check out these tips in action!

Additional articles with tips:

Using People Pictures in eLearning
Brand Your Online Training
Master Slides for PowerPoint

Check out these PowerPoint course styles and layouts!

Recently I came across Dave Moxon’s post “10 Things To Know If You Don’t Speak English“. He has some great tips that I thought you might enjoy.

Here are links to Articulate articles that help you develop using non-western fonts:
Non-Western Fonts
Localization Guidelines
TrueType Fonts
Font Styles

Want to create awesome games and interactions that work in Articulate? Try out our new eLearning Interaction tool.

Are you an Articulate user? Are you looking for a way to easily create games and interactions to make your courses more engaging?

You’re in luck…I’d like to introduce Interaction Builder. This tool is browser-based and has tons of different template interactions and games to choose from. You don’t need to know flash or programming!

Now you can quickly create eLearning interactions and games for Articulate.

Steps to create interactions:
1. Choose an interaction from the library
2. Input your text, images, and audio
3. Choose a theme (colors, backgrounds, buttons, etc.)
4. Download a single flash file (.swf)
5. Insert the file into Articulate

Try it for Free!

Awhile back I had some videos that were loading slowly in Articulate. So after a bit of research I found a post on how to preload media files in Articulate.

Basically you create a .swf flash file with a list of files that you want to preload. You then insert the .swf in the logo panel. Pretty slick! Check it out.

Great looking Articulate Player Skins!

As I’ve been creating custom Articulate skins I’ve come across some tips and insights that I thought I’d share. (This isn’t a tutorial on how to create a skin from scratch. Just a few pieces of knowledge.)

——–Warning: This post is for Articulate Development Geeks————-

Package xml file:

- The <content title> tag seems to be what drives the name of the skin on the installation window.
- Don’t forget to use the version number. It saves a bunch of confusion later on.

Presenter Template xml file:
- Name this file anything that you’d like. Just make sure you reference it in the package file.
- Use the <htmlBgColor> tag to control the html color behind your skin. This can come in handy to match a canvas bkg or “side” color that you add to a skin.
- The name of this file becomes the name of the Player in the publish drop-down in Articulate.
- <playerbar> This are contains true/false statements to control parts of the original Articulate skin. Remember that a custom skin just “covers up” the existing default Articulate skin. If the <playerbar> audio control, play control, seekbar aren’t disabled then you will still be able to click on them through your custom skin. They almost act like invisible buttons that are on top of your custom skin. (messes things up…set them to false.)

View Modes:
- Our skins work in “no sidebar” view mode. You need to make sure you design for one of the 3 modes and then default your skin to the correct mode. (<display modes>in the presenter template xml file)
- Let the users know not to change the view mode in the Slide Properties.

Custom Articulate skins can get a bit tricky. Don’t forget to also check out the Articulate forums for more assistance and discussions.

Here are a few custom Articulate Players that we’ve created:

We are excited to offer this free Articulate Player Skin! (IMPORTANT: When you download the .zip file you need to change the extension to .artpkg. That will make Articulate recognize it as an Articulate skin file.)

We hope you enjoy it! All we ask in return is that you spread the word. Share the link to this free Articulate skin blog post with others. Shoot out a tweet, update your status on Facebook, or if you’re feeling adventurous… publish a blog post.

Here is a close-up of the free Articulate skin. Note: This free Articulate Skin is the “simple no audio” version of the Aspen Articulate Skin Series.

“Simple No Audio” version of the Articulate Skin:

• Simplified player with limited buttons
• Navigation visible
• Menu visible
• Attachments visible

Download the Free Articulate Skin.
Note: This side work in the “No sidebar” viewing mode. If you change your view mode in the Slide Properties it will mess up the skin. (Skin FAQs)

Here is a tutorial on how to install the Articulate skin.

Demo the “standard” paid version Aspen Articulate skin.

Go check out the “standard” paid version of this Articulate Player.

Purchase Articulate skins here.

Custom Articulate Skins!

James over at eLearningEnhanced.com built a cool Articulate Presenter widget that I thought readers might like.

Printable User Slide Notes
This widget allows your course user to type notes on any slide within the Articulate course. They can then save the notes, view them, and print if desired. The “notes” tab appears on the left by the course menu. (You can rename the tab to anything you’d like.)

Thanks James!

Do you have a Flash file that you’ve inserted into Articulate Presenter and it is doing “weird” things? Does it skip the first frame? Does it just keep playing and seem to ignore the stop actions?

We have many Articulate users that use our Flash Games and Interactions to build courses. I often get questions about how to make the Flash files work properly in Articulate. So I thought that I’d write a quick post that explains the proper settings.

If you have a Flash file that has buttons and navigation built into it (you want to users to click around) then you need these Articulate settings:

Click the Insert Flash button in Articulate and choose:

• Advance to next slide: When user clicks next
• Synchronization: Movie plays independently of slide

Important: Also make sure the flash file is ActionScript2. For now ActionScript3 will not work in Articulate.

For more questions/answers about our templates and Articulate skins please see our FAQ page.

Need Flash interactions for Articulate?