New eLearning Tools Roundup – #ASTD2011

 I spent most of my time at ASTD ICE on the Expo floor.  Our booth was in eLearning Alley – along with Allen Interactions, Articulate and the eLearning Brothers.

There were a lot of new authoring tools on the show floor this year.  Here’s a quick run down on the tools I checked out and some of the buzz:

Articulate Storyline

Tom Kuhlmann and Dave Anderson of Articulate were showing off their new tool, Storyline, which goes into beta this summer.  It’s a separate product from Articulate Studio, but seems to do some cool things with branching and trigger states.  It’ll come with various character packs so you can create stories right out of the box.

Zebra Zapps

This is Michael Allen’s new love product child.  Not for the entry level user, but this product will certainly allow developers to quickly create some cool interactive experiences. Zebra is a cloud-based authoring tool.  The Zapps part is because it creates little interactive apps.  Get it?  Took me awhile…

I think their market will extend beyond the elearning space into marketing and website development.   While it’s not yet creating SCORM objects, this will come. 

Lectora Snap!

I didn’t actually view this product, but I did talk to one of the booth dudes at Lectora.  This is essentially an entry point product -- $99 for PowerPoint conversions to SCORM objects.  At that price, why not just try it out? (Although you can try it out free for 30 days).

Lectora has gotten the rap as being the complicated tool on the market now. Feels like Trivantis is moving back to basics and trying to meet the market where it’s at.  Maybe this is their gateway drug to Lectora?  Hook ‘em with Snap and then get ‘em interested in more sophisticated elearning development.

Shift

This isn’t a new tool, but the first time I’d checked it out. Shift is a collaboration, server-based authoring environment (this means your stuff lives in the “cloud”, allowing a geographically diverse team to work on the same project at the same time).  It’s got built in templates – over 200 of them – along with agents/avatars that you can do lip synching on etc. 

It’s not cheap, but server-based collaborative tools do run more expensive than desk-tops tools.  $8,500 for a one year subscriptions – which includes two developers and one administrator. Additional licenses for $3,500.

Jambok

This isn’t an authoring tool, but it is worthy of note.  Jambok is social learning in a simple user interface.  Let your people upload videos, screen casts, etc.  Jambok was just acquired by SuccessFactors…so it’s got that going for it.

That’s a wrap

I know I missed a lot of other tools and cool products.  The ICE expo is massive.  Did you see something interesting that I didn’t? 

Articulate Storyline

So the buzz last week at the e-Learning Guild's Learning Solutions Conference in Orlando was all about Articulate Storyline.

Articulate Community Manager Jeanette Brooks confirms that it's all true:

"We are indeed building an amazing new e-learning authoring tool called Storyline, while at the same time working on exciting new enhancements to Articulate Studio."

Rumor has it that Storyline will include some great features like a screen capturing tool! And saved text inputs! And it will make coffee for you, too! (OK, maybe that part's not true...)

Some feature rundowns here: http://community.articulate.com/forums/p/1694/9102.aspx#9102

So. For those of you who saw the demos last week, what do you have to say? Does Storyline live up to the buzz? Can you hardly wait to get your hands on it?

Crowdsourcing: Authoring Tools & LMS Questions

I'm talking to an in house learning team as they work on developing a strategy around eLearning -- including authoring tools and LMS selection.

They've posed some questions to me that I was hoping to get your input on -- wisdom of the crowd and all that:

• What should we look out for when selecting a tool to do simulation development or quizzing/evaluation?
• Do we need a full-blown authoring tool like Lectora or Outstart if we already have something like Captivate?
• What developments in elearning are becoming commonplace and how can we factor them into our tools selection?
• What do your clients (or others in the biz) say they wish they’d done differently when they committed to an LMS and in-house development of elearning?

Leave your ideas in comments or feel free to email me directly cammybean @ gmail

Thanks!

eLearning Authoring Tools Mindmap

Trying to figure out what eLearning authoring tools to use? Not sure where to get started? Check out this collaborative eLearning Authoring tools Mindmap. I started it a year ago and my has it grown!

Independent Instructional Designer’s Toolbox

I’m not a free lance instructional designer, although I have played one on TV. No, not really, but I have been a freelance ID in the past.

Back then, the only tools I really used were Word, PPT, Visio, Project…not a single authoring tool in sight.

How does that landscape look like today? If you’re a freelance ID, what authoring tools do you claim you know? (I say that in the most loving of ways, but you know what I mean…)

And by authoring tool, I mean a tool that allows you to create self-paced eLearning courses.

What’s in your toolbox?

Independent-contractor, freelance instructional designers – please answer the poll! Your colleagues want to know:

e-Learning Authoring Tools Crash Course -- Follow Up

I had the great pleasure of speaking last night at the Massachusetts chapter of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI).

It was a lively conversation and a wonderful opportunity for me to meet some of my online colleagues from the twitter sphere (thanks for coming, y'all!) as well as connect with some new folks in the Boston e-learning community.

Special thanks to Jean Marrapodi for inviting me to present.

___________

My topic: e-Learning Authoring Tools Crash Course: Deciding What Authoring Tools to Use and When

In preparation for the session, I had to take a crash course in authoring tools myself.

(If you know me, you know I've never been much of a tool user, although I have been called a tool.)

Here are some of the resources I promised to post.

My Sources

Since I'm not a tool user, I needed to mine the collective brain of the e-learning community to find out what's what. Here's what I turned to:

Kineo Authoring Tools Reviews OK. I know I'm biased because I work for Kineo, but I do think our review section is great. Paul Johns, Theo Cardiff, Steve Rayson among others have taken a bunch of tools for test drives and tell us what they think. They've included rating scales and subjective tales of their experiences, sometimes along with links to examples. We're adding new reviews all the time, so let me know if there's a tool you'd like us to check out.

eLearning Authoring Tools Mind Map A month or two ago I asked for your input to create a collaborative comparison of different products on the market. I asked "What do you use it for?, what do you like about? and what don't you like about it. Still a work in progress as I see it's being updated all the time. Note: you can generally tell if info was provided by a real user or by an authoring tool company ;)

Bryan Chapman, Brandon Hall Research Report, Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase 2009 (A Buyer's Guide to 120+ of the Best E-learning Content Development Applications). The list does include older tools like Authorware, which are no longer being supported and definitely missing a tool or two. But this could be a great place for an organization to start sorting through the mess of tools out there.

Michael Hanley provides a great resource to the eLearning community with his ongoing review of open source tools. Michael Hanley's E-Learning Curve Blog.

Janet Clarey of Brandon Hall Research recently wrote up a nice review of My Udutu.

Tom Kuhlman of Articulate is always knocking it out of the park over on his Rapid E-Learning Blog. A great place to seek inspiration and tips, and not just for Articulate users.

e-Learning Authoring Tools

The Brandon-Hall Authoring Tools database currently includes over 120 tools. That's a whole heck of a lot of tools. And that doesn't include half of 'em, I'm sure.

Our group was able to identify about 15 products off the tops of our heads. Gives you a sense of the marketplace, doesn't it? I looked at that list of 120 and many of the tools I'd never heard of either.

We flashed through the list and then took a closer look at these tools, along with a few examples along the way:

Flash www.adobe.com/products

Captivate www.adobe.com/products/captivate

Articulate www.articulate.com

Lectora www.lectora.com

Udutu www.udutu.com

Raptivity www.raptivity.com

Atlantic Link www.atlantic-link.co.uk

Mohive www.mohive.com

eXe http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/exe/wiki

Flypaper www.flypaper.com/

Suddenly Smart www.suddenlysmart.com

Thinking Worlds www.thinkingworlds.com

We obviously couldn't cover every tool in the pool, and I'm sure some feelings will be hurt. But I think I did get a good smattering -- something new for everyone.

Thanks to all for coming!

eLearning Authoring Tools Review -- Help!

I am working on a presentation in a few weeks about eLearning authoring tools. A high level overview for learning and development types who don't actually use the tools, but want to know what's out there, when you might use it, and some of the pros and cons.

Now, I'm not much of a tool user myself. I've got some understanding of tools. But I would love the input of some actual tool users -- or perhaps recipients of eLearning created with those tools. Experience counts. Any experience.

Could you help me out and go play around with this mind map here? Feel free to add tools (Once you're into editing mode, just click on the central hub of the diagram and click Enter. Mindmeister seems to be a pretty easy tool to use. Go on. Try it!)

Our output will be the property of everyone -- so feel free to add to, share and reuse.

Thanks!

Rapid Authoring Tools Speed Dating

Check out the Engage presentation done by the folks over at Kineo: Rapid Authoring Tools Speed Dating. 5-minute interviews with Articulate, Atlantic Link, Composica, Experience Builders, Mohive, Outstart, Raptivity, ReadyGo.

I hadn't even heard of some of these companies, so was eager to check out their solutions. Some of them look better than others. I thought the Experience Builders simulation tool somewhat intriguing. ReadyGo is very minty green and not that great to look at.

See what you think.