We receive many questions regarding viewing Flash on iPads and iPhones. iSpring recently published a great blog with a comparison of different tools available to view Flash on iPads . They spent some time testing Puffin, Appsverse Photon, iSwifter, and Cloud Browse, listing the pros and cons of each application.

I decided to give Puffin a try and was able to successfully view a published Flash course that included imbedded videos and various interactions. I also tested a few of our Flash games, and they too worked well. The only update to the iSpring blog I would add is, the free version of Puffin only offers a 14-day trial of the Flash plugin. You need to purchase the app for $2.99 to maintain the Flash plugin option.

The iSpring team also explored using remote desktop software that would allow you to access your computer and view Flash files. They tested the TeamViewer software and have detailed the pros and cons of this option as well.

So if you are looking for an app that will allow you to view Flash on your iPad/iPhone, check out this blog post for more information: Can I Play Flash on iPad? Yes!

We are excited to announce the launch of our new eLearning Template Library . This new library gives subscribers an “All You Can Buffet” of templates, images, and assets.

Here’s some of the grub available on our Buffet:

• Flash Games, Quizzes, and Interactions
• PowerPoint Slide Layouts
• PowerPoint Classroom Games
• Articulate Player Skins
• Captivate Templates
• CutOut People Images
• Branded Themes
• Speech Bubbles and tons of other graphics

You may be wondering, what are the benefits of being a subscriber? Well, here are a few:

• Unlimited Access to the Buffet – you can come back for seconds, thirds…
• Immediate Access to New Products
• Product Upgrades and Enhancements immediately available
• Access to Exclusive Content not available for individual sale

Subscribe now and get Everything!

It’s time to pull up a chair and begin the feast!

Let me start out by saying that online training is not better than classroom training. It’s different! Both are effective ways of motivating and transferring information. You need to determine your training goals, to determine which training method is best for your organization. Here are a few factors to consider when deciding which training methods will work best for your organization:

Geography

How dispersed is your target audience? Are they in clusters or spread out individually? How much travel would be involved? Would the trainer go to them or would they come to the trainer? eLearning has an advantage in this area because geography doesn’t matter….they just need a computer.

Trainer Resources

Do you have team members that can spend time as trainers? Do they have the presentation skills and subject matter expertise to train the course? How many trainers would you need to deliver your course content? A good training can have an amazing impact however it can be expensive to send out trainers and to ensure they have the proper skills.

Maintenance

How often will the course change? Are you expecting system, policy, and/or process changes? An eLearning course can be changed in one central area and sent out to everyone. Paper classroom materials become nearly impossible to keep updated.

Technology

Does your target audience have computers, audio, network connections? Are they comfortable using them? Can they view video or hear audio? How’s your network bandwidth? Do you have the software needed to build the course? eLearning does have “technology” expenses and may need an initial investment.

Design/Development Team

What skill set does your design/development team need to have? What design software will you use to build your training? You will need to find someone with “eLearning authoring skills” or the ability to learn them.

Facilities

Do you have training rooms? Are they equipped with the needed equipment such as PCs, projectors, whiteboards, etc.? Classroom training may require the build-out of classrooms. That can get expensive.

Scale

How many people need to be trained? How quickly does the course need to roll out? Online training can train tons of people at once.

As you think about the questions above you’ll start to better understand how classroom and online training may fit into your organization. Many organizations decide that a blended approach is the best. Some of the pre-work may be online and followed by classroom training. At times the basics may be online and followed by more advanced classroom training. There are many ways to blend the two.

Greetings from Hawaii. Do you want to build amazing training? Do you want to engage your learners? Well we have just the answer for you. We just launched some cool new Flash Games! These new games will help you build, to use a local term, ”mo’ bettah” training courses. Our new games include some exciting new features like: new audio sound effects, timed activies, and sports challenges, just to name a few.

Check out these cool new games:

Wheel Spin – In this game, your learners spin the big wheel, answer the question correctly, and earn the points from the spin.

Line It Up – Line It Up is a sequence type game where you have to put all of the options on the screen in the correct order. It is great for quizzing someone regarding memory order.

Try Your Luck – In this fun game, you get to “buzz in” to stop the bouncing game piece, answer the question correctly, and earn points for each correct answer.

Word Guess – The Word Guess game presents your learners with a question and they are given an opportunity to guess the answer by selecting different letters and filling in the blanks.

Jump Shot – Are you ready for a little sports action? In Jump Shot, as your learners answer questions correctly, they earn time to shoot jump shots at the end of your quiz.

Field Goal – Field Goal is very similar to Jump Shot, in that your learners earn time to kick Field Goals for each correct answer in the quiz questions.

Board Game – The Board Game challenge is similar to playing a classic board game. Learners roll the dice, move the game piece, and answer questions.

Card Stack – Sort through a stack of cards to identify the correct answer.

Fishing – Well, it’s just like it sounds…learners get to cast their line, catch a fish, and answer a question.

Come check out our new Flash Games and see for yourself how much fun elearning can be!

Are you developing online training content (eLearning)? Do you want to save money and time? Are there multiple members on your team and you need everything to be consistent? Are there varying levels of technical expertise on the team?

These are just a few questions that we come across while building online training content. Using templates to build eLearning can address many of the questions above. Before discussing a few points let me describe what I mean by eLearning templates.

Templates can include many different assets. Many common ones are PowerPoint master slide layouts that have many different pages ready for you to insert content. There are also various tools that create template interfaces and GUIs for courses. E-learning templates can include buttons, icons, color schemes, images, quizzes, games, and more. Basically they can be used over and over in different projects. Now let’s discuss a few benefits.

Save Time and Effort

Wouldn’t it be nice to have the interface, page layouts, buttons, icons, colors, and the most often used components of an online course ready to go? Right there on your desktop and ready to drag and drop into place?

Having templates ready to go means that you don’t have to waste time re-creating the same pieces for each course. This can be very valuable for those who may not have a strong background in multimedia. It could take a novice designer a long time to create a flash movie or design an asset that an expert could do in minutes. Also, the quality will be very different.

Another huge plus is that the designers can now spend time focusing on writing good material and less on how to make a button look pretty.

Consistency

Many organizations want their online courses to be consistent. They should have the same colors, look/feel, quality, etc. no matter who the individual designer was. Templates can help achieve this desire. Designers have a base to work from and are all using the same files.

You can also develop a template interface player. This would ensure that learners always have the same navigation options on each course. You could also standardize where links to job aids, outlines, bookmarks, and other features appear. The learner becomes familiar with navigating your course and doesn’t need to waste time trying to figure that part out. They can jump right into the training.

Technical Functionality

Are there certain requirements that your Learning Management System has for courses to function properly? Are there guidelines that the IT department has? Templates are a great way to build a file that works within all guidelines and then to share it with the entire department. As designers use the template it cuts down on troubleshooting time trying to determine why something isn’t working. That effort has already been done and only needs to happen once.

Move Beyond Your Talent

There are some amazing multimedia designers that can create some great content for online training. Not all instructional designers are good at creating multimedia. Templates can be created to add a lot of professionally designed interactivity and games to courses. All you have to know how to do is edit the template and then you can add content that is beyond your skill level to create on your own.

Increase Output and Creativity

I touched on this earlier but e learning templates allow designers to spend time on what they do best…writing course content. Templates can allow you to spend project time on the “meat” of the course and not on the “administrative” parts. This has two consequences: 1. You can spend time thinking of creative ways to make your course interesting and 2. You can build more courses in a shorter amount of time.

I hope that this article gave you a few ideas around how eLearning templates can help you and your team.

If you would like to see some templates here are some examples:
eLearning Flash Template Interactions
eLearning Games
PowerPoint Templates

When developing your eLearning courses if you want to be awesome, then have a consistent look and feel between all slides in your presentation. When you develop some slides using Flash templates and others within PowerPoint, often times you may find that they don’t match or look like they belong together. This tutorial demonstrates a simple technique that could help you.

We have all had project “kick-off” meetings with Subject Matter Experts where they do an information “dump”. They share with us anything and everything they have ever learned about the topic. We are then left reviewing all the content/information that has been given to us and try to determine what is “Nice to Know” and what is “Need to Know”. Of course to the SME, all of the content is “Need to Know”, so it is our job to ask the right questions to sort through all the information.

In Diane Elkin’s blog post Negotiating Out “Nice-to-Know” Information, she touches on some key concepts/questions we should all practice when working with SMEs.

1.  Just because the “SME says so”, is not a good reason for including unnecessary content in a course. You are the Instructional Designer and your job is to work with your SME to help them understand that only content that leads to improved performance is “Need to Know” information.

2.  Be careful with the questions you ask your SMEs. Questions like, “Do they need to know this?” or “Do we need to include this?”, will most often result in a YES answer. Thus making it harder for you to convince your SME that the information may not necessarily need to be included in the course.

3.  Ask better questions like:

“Can you give me an example of when this would come up on the job?”

“Would there ever be a situation where they’ll need to rely on this information?”

“What would happen if someone DIDN’T learn this information?”

These types of performance-based questions are going to help guide your SME in considering how the learners are going to apply the information they learn in the course to their everyday jobs. If they cannot apply the information, then is it really “Need to Know” information that should be included in the course?

Previously we have talked about when we should test learners . Now let’s focus on writing successful test questions that support course objectives.

Keep these tips in mind when writing test questions:

Write test questions first.

Once your course objectives are defined, write your test questions before writing your course content. This prevents the trap most of us have fallen into of writing test questions as an afterthought once the course is completed.

Create a question bank.

Create a bank of test questions to choose from. If a learner has to complete the test multiple times, they will receive different test questions each time.

Randomize questions and answers.

When designing your test questions, randomize the answers…so learners cannot memorize the order of the answers in the event they do not pass the test the first time.

Remember, if you use answers such as “All of the Above” or “Both A and B”, then don’t randomize the answers.

Questions should challenge your learners…but not trick them!

Test questions should test learners knowledge, so make them challenging. Do not create “trick” questions…these can be very frustrating for the learner and ultimately sabotage your purpose for testing.

Are your test questions answered in the course content?

Always make sure that the answers to your test questions are included in your course content somewhere (audio, video, graphics, on screen text, etc.). If there are any that are not, then be sure to let the learner know that the question is a “stretch question”.

Remediation.

All test questions should include remediation. Make each test question a learning opportunity even if they get it wrong.

Expected behaviors or results.

What are the expected behaviors of your learners once they have completed the course? Focus your test questions on these behaviors. What do you expect the learner to be able to do/know as a result of completing this course?

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d re-theme one of our Flash eLearning Templates. This tutorial shows you really how easy it is to completely change the look/feel of the templates. It’s very simple and doesn’t take much time either.