Developing a highly interactive course is a mammoth operation. If you’re looking to create highly interactive eLearning course using graphics and animation, then Flash is highly recommended. Most of the online product training, sales training and software training require courses with high interactivity for effective learning experience.

Similar kind of output can be achieved using Articulate Engage. Unlike other authoring tools like Lectora and Captivate, Articulate Engage gives you an option to create interactivities, which will help in creating effective learning experience.

Subject Matter Experts (SME) or Instructional Designers (ID) can use these templates to create storyboards and complete the course in short time, making it cost effective.

Some of the popular instructional approaches that can be used are given below along with the Articulate screen shots.

Clickable Circular Diagram: Shows various elements of a process.

FAQs: Useful as a quick reference for sales training kit.

Glossary Template: Highly visual glossary page for explaining the concept or a term easily.

Guided Imagery: Useful for product training and explaining the parts of a product.

Labeled Graphics: Useful to explain software screens or labeling parts of a product. When the user clicks on the rollover icon (hotspot), the explanation for same is displayed.

Media Tour: Useful for animations and embedding videos.

Process: It explains the process/procedure in a step wise format. Recommended for production or manufacturing processes.

Pyramid: Shows various steps or hierarchy levels in a process.

Timelines: Shows history or process of any activity vis-à-vis time.

Click on Tabs: To provide additional information on a given set of topics.

Hello! Today we will learn about how we can use Lectora translation tool for rapid development of translations. In this blog, I will show you one page translation procedure demo using Lectora 2008.

Let’s translate one page of English course into Simplified Chinese.

First, we need to export all the content into the translation text file. This can be done easily using the inbuilt tool available in Lectora.

Click on the Tools menu item from the Menu bar, and then click on the Translation Tool menu item.

The Translation Tool dialog opens. In the dialog box, choose the ‘Export text to a translation file’ option. Next check ‘The current page only’ option; since this is a demo, we are translating only one (current page) only.

Click on the ‘Browse’ button for the location to save the exported text file. Enter the file name and click on ‘Open’ and then click the ‘OK’ button.

At the end of the procedure, you will be able to see the exported file. Let’s view the text file.

In the document, you will come across instructions like ‘Do not edit this line’ in red. The translators need to be informed about not to delete or translate these instructions. They need to translate only the text below the instruction line.

Let’s have a look at the document translated by the translator. Here is the translated file, Click to view the document. Except for the instructions line, the text is translated into Simplified Chinese language.

After we receive the translated document, we need to import it into the Lectora to replace the English content with Simplified Chinese. Let’s see how to do it.

Again click on the ‘Tools’ menu item from the ‘Menu’ options and then click on the ‘Translation Tool’ menu item.

Next, check the radio button next to ‘Import text from a translation file’. Check the ‘Increase text box size if needed’ option to adjust the text size of the translated content automatically by Lectora.

Click on the ‘The current page only’ option to import as this is a demo.

Click on ‘Browse’ button to locate the translated file and then click on ‘OK’ ‘button. The translated content will replace the text content in the original language on the page.

Check for any formatting / alignment issues. Similarly you can do it for the entire course.

If you need to localize the course you can replace the images and other objects like Flash, manually. Once you are finished with editing the text and localizing the content, the course is ready to publish.

As President Obama declares H1N1 a National Emergency, we felt that there is a tremendous need to understand the H1N1 virus – precautions, symptoms and cure. Awareness will help us reduce panic and eradicate swine flu soon.

Here are some useful information on precautions, symptoms and useful online resources to keep you aware about the flu on a regular basis.

Precautions

1. Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently.
2. Keep your throat clean by gargling twice a day with warm salt water or Listerine. Clean your nose frequently.
3. Build your immune system by eating vitamin C rich food and Vitamin C supplements.
4. Eat Fresh food and drink lot of water.

Symptoms of H1N1 Flu

Contact Health Care Provider Immediately

Cover Your Cough and Sneezes

Useful Links for Information

• H1NI Influenza Center
• Frequently asked question about H1N1 Flu
• Online Tutorial on H1N1 Flu
• 2009 H1N1 Flu: Situation Update
• Tracking the progress of H1N1 swine flu
• FLU.GOV

Research in current learning theory highlights the importance of using the learning process to determine the architecture of courses – rather than the structure of the content driving the architecture. It also demonstrates that there are four main phases in the learning cycle.

The four main phases of the learning cycle are:

1. Review: Sets the context and helps the learner bridge prior knowledge through an understanding of a broader context for new knowledge. Krathwohl’s Affective Domain Taxonomy can be taken as the benchmark model.

The role of phase 1 in the learning process is to influence the attitudes, values and beliefs of the learner to create “anticipatory set” for learning key concepts and principles in phase 2. Phase 1 may include a pre-test of prior knowledge and also may include activities. This phase may be called: Background, Introduction, Context, Reflection or another named deemed appropriate to the course goals. This phase answers the question “Why?”

2. Learning: The second phase is the Information Transfer or Knowledge Acquisition phase. Blooms Cognitive Domain Taxonomy can be taken as the benchmark model.

Phase 2 provides core content of the course. Core content may be procedural/process based, or concept/principle based. Phase 2 will be the largest section of “tutorial” or information transfer based courses. It may contain activities, exercises and tests. This phase answers the questions “What?”

3. Application: The phase 3 will consist of case studies or best practices or applied exercises. During this phase, learners develop an understanding of how to apply the new knowledge and skills in a generalized way and may be given an opportunity to practice skills. Problem-solving and decision-tree learning are appropriate learning models for Application

Phase 3 provides demonstrations of the application of the knowledge. This may include best practices, scenario/case study presentations or activities and/or case study exercises. Phase 3 may be called Cases, Case Studies, Scenarios, Activities, Application or another name deemed appropriate for the course goals. It answers the question “How?”

4. Adaptation: The last and the most important phase for performance improvement, which completes the learning cycle. The Accommodation Process is critical to improve performance because it is during this phase that the learner develops an understanding of how to apply the new knowledge and skills to the actual work context of the learner and is provided with the means to support transfer.

Phase 4 provides direction and support to help the learner transfer the new knowledge to his or her own performance context needs. It may include Job Aids, Guides and Guidelines, Checklists, Criteria lists, team or follow-up activities or Toolkits that include templates or forms. This phase may be called Adaptation, Getting There, Toolkit, Job Aids, Tools, Extension or another name deemed appropriate for the course goals. It answers the question “Now what?”

View our Learner Centric Approach to Instructional Design

Product training through eLearning offers a wonderful opportunity to enrich sales training programs with simulated product presentations and product walk-through in various selling situations. Actually eLearning also offers a comprehensive platform for Customer Service and Business Process Training.

Various industries such as Petroleum, Power Tools, Software, Financial Services, Metals & Minerals, Farms & Agriculture, etc, avail of eLearning courses for product training.

Beside Flash and HTML, authoring tools like Captivate, Articulate and Lectora are most commonly used to create product training eLearning courses.

Product Simulation

Based on product manuals, promotional literature and product images, highly interactive flash-based courses are created using product simulation. It makes learning highly effective and quick.

Click here to view demo

Software Simulation – ‘Watch-Try-Do’

‘Watch-Try-Do’ approach is one of the most effective ways to demonstrating how a software product works. The learner gets the real time experience of how the software works and also gets the opportunity to work on the simulated environment.

Click here to view demo

For more information view Product Training through eLearning