Pros and cons of creating everything within Cp, or creating elsewhere and importing as videos.

[Lisa31013337pg2c]

Hi Community!

I am not new to teaching, presenting, or building slides and pedagogical material, but I am entirely new to putting it into course-authoring software. (Big learning curve here!) So I have a very big procedural question which I would really appreciate input on, before I spend too much time building material in this way that I -think- makes sense, but I may be having a blind spot. 

I am creating a project which will have 1,000+ slides of content.  I am planning to make the slides in Keynote (but would consider PPTX is there is a reason - please share opinions!) then export the slides to PDFs and make them into a video in either iMovie or Premiere, where I can put voice over and other sound if I want to.

Then I would bring the course material into Captivate as videos, and interperse Captivate-specific quizzes and interactive bits amongst the videos.

Opinions welcome if you think this is a good or bad way to handle this. Thank you so very much!

-Lisa, New Captivate User '23

[Lilybiri]

Lisa, I know you are on the (limited) new version of Captivate but even then I don't like what you propose as workflow.

Do NOT use PPT nor Keynote to create slides, create them in Captivate. There is not even an import functionality anymore, and even more important, you can create exclusively responsive projects. PPT nor Keynote can create responsive projects.

You know that I have a lot of experience with this authoring tool as I used it both for blended and distant learning in our university college. Reason for switching from presentations (which I used before PPT appeared and led to boring bulleted lists) to eLearning was the possibility for interactions, branching scenarios, use of assessments (not only quizzes) and personalized learning paths. You cannot achieve that with passive video. I had a lot of discussions with my students and with the many adult learners I coached about that. They told me: throw away those passive videos, give us as many interactions and control as is possible. Going back to passive video is going back on learning efficiency.

Moreover, despite my limited experience so far with CP12, you need to realize that keeping the file size as low as possible for responsive projects is very important. Video is not really a low file size component. Using Captivate to aggregate a lot of videos has always been a bad idea.

You can create interactive videos, although less easy than in Captivate Classic, by using the bookmarks. An interactive video is sort of a hybrid between a fully interactive course and a passive video. Here is an example of such an interactive video:

Custom Play/Pause button

Beware: this has been created in and is valid for Captivate Classic.

Hope that this is a bit clarifying? 

[Stagprime]

1,000+ slides!

I hope that isn't a single project but maybe more like 100 smaller ones...?

I personally try to keep projects small.

It minimizes problems and helps when the need to update arises.

To think if that one project got corrupted... 😮

I also think that any reputable LMS will allow uploading videos individually as standalone artifacts for tracking.

I would take advantage of that.

[Lisa31013337pg2c]

Lilybiri and Stagprime, I appreciate your answers so much! Thank you 🙂

My course material is approx 1 hour long, and my intention is that every 2-3 minutes there is an interaction.

The reason I say there would be approx 1000 slides is that I create my slides with embedded subtitles, because I think after-the-fact subtitles are usually so bad. So sometimes one slide might become 4 or 5 because it is 4-5 phrases. Or 4-5 slides might be cartoon drawings that end up being a 1-second 'mini-movie'.  So that is the reason for a) a lot of slides and b) that I envisioned creating my material as a video or series of videos, then interspersing the "interactive" elements such as quizzes, flip-card widgets.

I hear a mixed opinion, where on the one hand Lilybiri advises creating the content within Cp beause things don't import well - but I am concerned with the very limited layout options. And then Stagprime I hear you about the dangers of creating too much within one file or program, in case of a crash, corruption, etc.

So there is no easy answer but I want to say how much I appreciate your input. I will try and experiment and also give this a lot of thought before I invest too much time creating any one format. Thank you, and if you both, or anyone else, has furthuer input, I woudl so much appreciate it!

By the way, it seems that in Cp 12, when a video is imported, it takes a small area of the screen only - have either of you (or anyone else) found a way to get a video clip to occupy maximum screen real estte? Thank you in advance!

[Lilybiri]

Mixed opinion? No, we both mentioned that such a big amount of slides is not at all appropriate for a responsive project. Most people recommend to keep such a project to a duration of maximum 5 minutes. The necessity to split this up in multiple projects is clear.

I have more problems with your workflows, because the idea of interactivity seems not to be very clear. Of course the limitations of the new Captivate is not helping, because in any responsive project you lose a lot of control as developer and that is here the case for sure. Nobody will watch such a long course on a phone, be realistic.

It looks like you are too advanced to cope with all the design limitations in CP12, if you ask my opinion. At its present state it is not meant for what I suspect to be in your mind. Interactivity is not just some question slides, it is a lot more. It should be aimed at giving the learner as much control as possible for her/his learning curve and to enable reaching the goals of the course for any learner. Passive video is not a solution in that case.

[Lisa31013337pg2c]

Yes, perhaps I will indeed end up splitting into 3 x 20-minutes modules.

Mainly for now I am trying to figure out how much to create within Cp (which is limited in control/layout/etc) and how much to import from files created in other programs.

Perhaps I misunderstood Stagprime as I thougt he was saying not to rely too much on creating within Cp. But maybe he was just talking about volume of material, period. Sorry for my confusion.

And I do agree intuitively, not to have any one file/module/etc be too muc in volume. Thank you for your input, Lilybiri! Still a lot to learn as I bring my material ito this new format, and all of these opinions are much appreciated. 

[ChrisJ76]

Due to my lack of Cp2019s ability as an app, and best practice for use, I have projects which can contain up to 800 slides. I cannot split them up due to the limitiations of our custom build LMS being restricive - another sore topic.
I work in the telecommunications industry. The content I create is for administrators and front-end users. Usually I am exploring the administration side of a phone system. It's not a light subject and is process driven, therefore software simulation is a heavily used feature. 
I have learned so much from good old Paul Wilson, and other tutorials on YT, but not had any official training. To hear how other people have used Cp, is warmly welcomed and advice appreciated.

Having a background as a creative designer, I utilise Illustrator to create assets. Occasionally I may introduce custom animated GIFs - via Animate (formerly Flash) - video/motion graphics from Premiere Pro/AfterEfffects - but everything else is build within Cp. 
The video content is of varying durations. Some projects can contain up to 20 which are interspersed between the software simulation - providing a, 'watch, then do' method of learning. 
As mentioned, Cp2019 is 720p (1280 x 720 pixels) in a 16:9 format set in RGB colour mode. Though, other sizes are available when creating a project.

PNG graphics are good to use - due to the fact that PNGs can have a transparent background. Working with Adobe's Illustrator, I can produce said image format. Cp2019 will accept images to be added to the Timeline (TL), but the newer, will not; so I cannot say what 'size' it is - the app doesn't even say.

Cp2019 is a powerful tool. Add a burst of imagination and you can make something quite magical, especially if you have an understanding of Javascript. Granted Cp19 is based on a static page size and the 2023 version is much more rigid, due to the web based format, you have to 'play jazz' to see what can be achieved. The program developers deserve a round of applause for both iterations.

[Lilybiri]

@ChrisJ76 Thanks for your input, always interesting to learn about experiences from other users.

You know that I have a lot of experience with Captivate from my presence here and on other social media and am also moderator here. Hence the reason why I like to pop in with some tips for you.

This thread is about the new Captivate which allows so far only the creation of responsive projects. Due to that goal, your big courses would have an equally big problem to be created in this version.  Can you explain what you mean by the difference between 'static page size' and 'web based format'? AFAIK the responsive format also existed in CP2019 but you used Fluid Boxes to achieve the rearrangement over multiple resolutions and landscape/portrait switch. I suppose you mean this, but it is not new at all.

Great about your use of other Adobe applications, which I love to do as well. However all roundtripping is gone in CP2023 (which was great in CP2019, especially with Photoshop, see: Roundtripping with PS)

Illustrator roundtripping was less powerful, but I use it a lot to create SVGs for CP2019. I wonder why you kept exclusively to PNGs? Apparently partly because you do not have any restrictions in file size and created exclusively non-responsive projects? 

Sure, the Timeline in CP2023 is less useful, but I still use it a lot to select the appropriate item because the confusion between container and objects in the container is easy when selecting on stage. I don't understand what you mean by adding 'images' to the timeline however? Each object added to the stage automatically appears in the Timeline where you can change its individual timeline. It may be just a misunderstanding of terminology from my side, I am not a native English speaker (English is my third language after Dutch and French).

I use Animate as well, but since the death of Flash Player, mostly to create OAMs, not animated GIFs. I used Photoshop for GIFs but due to HTML less is possible with GIFs now.

Premiere is mostly a bridge too far, but I am a fan of Premiere Rush since it was released. Passive video is not really my favourite asset.

Do you never use Audition? It has a great roundtripping in CP2019, love that app (but I am a musician, so...).

[Stagprime]

I think making things in Captivate is great! I think what I am getting at is that if you do create things outside of Captivate such as a video or PowerPoint - consider leaving them outside of Captivate and uploading them to the LMS as separate artifacts.

Certainly - there are times I have created a video and embedded them within Captivate - but I try to minimize that where I can. In the case of an LMS - I use multiple tools and upload them separately. If I create a PDF document it is uploaded on its own rather than embedded within a Captivate file. If I need to make a change to the PDF I change it and upload the revision. If I embed that PDF in a Captivate project... now I have to update the PDF and the Captivate file and upload. My preference would be to find a way to creatively present the information of the PDF natively in Captivate if possible.

In the case of a standalone project - no LMS - I will embed whatever is needed.

Obviously - context dictates much of how I might go about things but I focus heavy on interaction with Captivate and fewer slides breaking up deliverables into smaller chunks. I like this because if my learners are trying to plug away a little bit at a time they can make visible progress by completing 3 of 10 objects rather than constantly being somewhere in the middle of one big one.

One of my favorite sayings - "Mile by mile, it takes a while. Inch by inch, its a cinch."

Tough to take the whole staircase at once, but one stair at a time I am confident I will get to the top.

Now I am rambling but I hope you get the gist of what I am driving at.

[Lisa31013337pg2c]

Chris, Stag, and Lilybiri - again much appreciate all of yor comments!

I will do some experimenting and revisit this topic when I've tried a few things.

Appreciate the insights on creating within Captivate vs creating outside of Captivate. 

One thing I also need to learn more abot is the LMS side of things. I am thinking of hosting on Adobe's own Captivate Prime. I will make a separate thread about this.

Thank you again, all!

[Lilybiri]

Lisa, there is a forum dedicated to Adobe Learning Manager. You still use the old name Captivate Prime. Here is the link to that forum:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-learning-manager/ct-p/ct-captivate-prime?page=1&sort=latest_rep...

Know that LMSs are not free and their cost is often based on the number of users. Adobe Learning manager is an excellent LMS which supports xAPI.