Yikes! I have to do an Articulate training!

Jun 27, 2011

Hi all,

I have been asked to conduct several training sessions for co-workers on the basics of Articulate.  Since I am one of the few using Articulate in our group, I have become the "expert." so to speak  My boss requested that I use a manual or at least be somewhat organized when doing the training. I basically trained myself by reading the blogs and forums so I have no idea where to start!  Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Liz

14 Replies
Jeanette Brooks

Hi Liz! Very cool that you are the internal guru! How many sessions are you able to do, and are there any specific things that people need or want to learn? What might end up being kind of a cool learning experience is to create an internal user group, rather than a traditional training class. This might help people take a more active role in their learning, and shape the sessions so that people are acquiring targeted skills they will need & use. Here's an article that might give you some ideas for ways to spearhead a user group...

If that doesn't float your boat, another thing you could do is mirror your sessions after topics covered in the Building Better Courses tutorials here on E-Learning Heroes.

Or, for an even more distilled approach, you could use this document as a springboard.

Regarding your boss's request for a manual -- there are quite a few resources here on E-Learning Heroes, so it might make more sense (and be a lot less labor intensive) to first identify the specific needs of your learners, and then assemble your own resource page (or document) with links to the best/most appropriate tutorials and posts.

Liz Moore

Thanks Jeanette! 

I am going to be doing about five learning sessions that last about an hour each.  I thought I could give an overview during the first session and then go into greater detail about each of the four components of Articulate in more depth (Presenter, Engage, Quizmaker, and Video Encoder).  That way I would have an hour to focus on each component. 

The people I am "training" all have different levels of experience with Articulate from never using it to having minimal experience.

Thank you for the references...they will be very helpful in getting me started.

Robert Kennedy

Hi Liz,

You can probably also use one of the books available.  Patti Shank's book is a good one.  Its a large book though. You can also check out the the Elkins, Coomes & Ward book.  It's a bit smaller and its the one we use in our trainings currently.  But, there are a LOT of good resources in this forum already as Jeanette mentioned.

You can touch bases with me if you choose and I can give you a rundown on how I approach my classes.

RK

David Anderson

Hi Liz,

Depending on the users you're training, you could follow the format we used for last years ASTD event in Chicago. You can pull out or add more tutorials as needed. The blog training approach is nice because each training "module" is based around a a frequent task or feature.

Good luck and please let us know how it goes!

Benjamin Brown

I have to do trainings like this all the time at the university and I always start with a great powerpoint without any of the Articulate quizzes or interactions. I think once the novice get their head around the fact that PowerPoint is so much more, then they can start to build better things. After that, I show them interactions etc.

Just my 2¢,

Ben

Mike Taylor

You could have a pretty good 'training guide' just by using the Articulate 101 series of blog posts from February 2008 .http://www.articulate.com/blog/29-really-useful-articulate-tutorials/

And if it was permissible by the Articulate folks and you gave the proper attribution etc etc those would make a fantastic manual/user guide document. You would probably need to update a few things but it's really good stuff.

Here is the list of topics it includes: 

Audio

Articulate Presenter

Articulate Quizmaker

Articulate Engage

Gerry Wasiluk

You could also do what we did--we linked to the tutorials located here (Presenter, Quizmaker and Engage) as web objects in separate AP modules that we added as AICC courses in our LMS.  Or just link to them directly outside of the LMS.

Nice tutorials for helping folks get the background info and operations first.

Liz Moore

Thanks for your feedback!

I've completed two of my four Articulate trainings sessions.  I ended up dividing them up into the following four sections:

1. Introduction to Articulate and Presenter

2. Engage

3. Quizmaker

4. Interactive session/Questions from participants

I know absolutely nothing about the video encoder so I will be learning as I go for that one!

Liz Moore

Hi!

I ended up doing an overview of each of the components of Articulate during my training.  I created a few materials for the learners to reference such as screen shots of the Presenter toolbar and a brief description of each item.  I also created a Word document with screen shots of all of the engage and quizmaker options to chose from.  I keep it handy for myself as well so I can present interactive options to the client up front.  I found that I referenced this website often during my training because of the wonderful tutorials and forums! 

Is it true that the next release of Articulate is nothing like Articulate '09?  I heard that from someone who is beta testing the new version.  I would hate to have to start from scratch again with my training.

Jeanette Brooks

Hi Liz - congrats on your training, it sounds like it went really well!

The person you were talking with was probably referring to Articulate Storyline, since that's the product we're currently beta'ing right now. And yeah, it's quite a bit different from Studio because it doesn't depend or connect to PowerPoint in any way. However, don't worry - we are still retaining Articulate Studio and are working on an update to that as well. And although it'll have a lot of cool enhancements, it won't be unrecognizable. There will still be a lot of the familiar features and tools that you're used to. Only more & better. :)

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