Complete Novice - Is there a simple process for what I want to do?

[kevin150662]

Hi

I'm a complete novice with Captivate. I''m currently evaluating Captivate 9 and would like to know if it can meet my needs without me having to become an expert in things I'd rather not be an expert in

I would like to take parts of a number of workshops that I run and make them part of an "upside down learning" approach where what can be done outside of the classroom is done outside of the classroom to enable my clients to maximise the the utility of the time spent together.

I work with KeyNote - I can convert this slides to Powerpoint quite easily as I understand that Captivate does not work with KeyNote. There seems to be plenty of tutorials on this so I'm pretty confident that I can learn this - with a bit of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I would like to make the completed modules available on my website. I use WordPress. This is where I'm getting confused. Is it possible to publish the modules to my website where students can access and complete them? Is it possible to make these modules only available to registered participants? Is it possible to track who has completed the modules and their scores? If this is possible, where could I find a simple explanation of what I need to do?

Thanks for any help that can offered

[RodWard]

The short answer is that Captivate can do some of the things you want, but other things would be done OUTSIDE of the Captivate modules.

If your heart is set on using Keynote/PowerPoint to build all your course modules, then I don't think it is the tool for you. Captivate does not convert all the objects on PPT slides into Captivate objects that can be edited individually afterward.  You have to do round-trip editing by going back into the original PPT deck and changing things there.  Making changes can get tedious.

Make no mistake, Captivate IS very powerful but since it's a professional-level tool it can also be very complex.  Newbie users often struggle with it. Since you are looking for simplicity and ease of use and don't intend to dedicate time to become proficient at all the aspects of Captivate, I don't think you would enjoy this journey.

Playing your published content from Wordpress is possible.  You simply need to upload ALL of the published files to your web server and then have a link in your Wordpress content that links to the HTM or HTML file that launches the learning content.  You don't set this inside Captivate.  You do that part of the process in Wordpress.  If you want to lock out any users that are not logged into your Wordpress site, I believe you need to look into setting up modules in Wordpress that can control access to content based on user permissions.  Again, this is NOT done in Captivate.

If you want to track completion of modules and scoring then you need to have a Learning Management System (LMS).  I have heard that you can install modules in Wordpress that allow you to track SCORM compliant content.  Captivate can certainly create SCORM content that is trackable by an LMS, but whether you can do this from YOUR Wordpress site or not is up to you.

All of this is getting into areas of technical complexity.  If you REALLY intend to swim in these waters, you need to be prepared to learn about the technical side of these issues.  There isn't really a SIMPLE explanation for it all.  It can take years to learn.

[kevin150662]

Thanks Rod

looks like this might be more challenging than I thought. I only run 3 - 4 workshops that might require any pre-course learning and the max modules for each course would be 3-4. These would be simple - review the slides and answer some multiple choice and or True/False questions. It's not important at this stage to have the animations from the slides play out in Captivate. So I'm wondering if given the limited nature of what I'm trying to achieve whether or not moving between PowerPoint and Captivate would be too much of a problem. I'm assuming that I could create native Captivate presentations later if I wish? I appreciate that Captivate will ta as much time as I give it but I'm looking to get some functionality quickly from it - I might choose to invest more time in it later. A bit like the guitar - I want to start with some basic chords to play some songs and then decide whether I want to try an play like Hendrix lol. I there are other programs that might do this more easily and simply I'd also love to hear

Thanks for your response.

[Lilybiri]

If you only want to convert a PPT, it would indeed be better to go for one of the PPT plug-ins like Adobe Presenter (comes also with the easy to use Video Xpress app) or iSpring. They are not Mac-compatible however. Personally I never recommend using Captivate when you want to start from a PPT.