I'm working with an ASTD chapter that's thinking about doing an Articulate session. They don't know a lot about the tools and wanted some feedback. Perhaps you can help.
What kind of session
would you be looking for in a conference setting?
What is that a new user
would want/need from a session?
What is a more
experienced user be looking for?
What would it take for
you to come to the session?
Is it right to assume the audience won't know a lot about the tools as well? I'm asking because one of your questions is "What would it take for you to come to the session," and I would answer that question differently for me than someone new to Articulate.
I'd say that at most ASTD local conferences that there will be a wide range of skills and abilities: some advanced and some challenged. Furthermore, depending on the location of this said ASTD local chapter, their skills may be more or less apt. For me, if I want to see what a vendor has then I will talk with that vendor, and I prefer my ASTD seminars to be more abstract or skill oriented. That being said, if you do some combination of skill + articulate like many of your blog postings, then I believe you may have something that can both benefit a wide range of audiences. For example, doing a simulation in Articulate would be a great rapid, elearning seminar including where to find or how to build great simulation type graphics (e.g. people).
For Articulate, I would definitely the Essential Articulate Studio '09 book available and market the elearning heroes site and its plethora of downloads. To answer your questions though, I believe a newbie would want an overview and experienced user would want some customization questions available to be answered.
I agree with Will Findlay's recommendation to show real demonstrations of Articulate courses. Adding to that, it would be helpful to show starting with basic techniques and leading into some advanced techniques. Maybe you could capture some of these in screenr demos, that way you would not have to use valuable time in opening and closing several files and clicking everywhere.
One thing I often teach new Articulate developers is how to package up a course and send it to another developer.
As for advanced Articulate developers, I think most would like to feel more comfortable with branching techniques.
I'm overviewing Articulate and showing my lessons at the Austin ASTD ID SIG meeting Thursday evening, and will put your questions to that group, then feed back here.
I haven't seen our pre-session survey results yet, but I suspect it'll be a mixed audience. (As a former-and-future instructor, I still say a heterogeneous audience is the toughest kind, even tougher than a hostile audience - at least the latter are all of one mind.)
I consider myself to be a fairly advanced user of Articulate. Even so, I attended both the basic and advanced workshops at the recent ASTD TechKnowledge Conference in San Jose and found that I learned new things during both sessions. Even advanced users can use a reminder of features that they may have forgotten about or at least learn new ways of using the tools in Presenter, Quizmaker and Engage.. What I would recommend, if possible, is to set a schedule for basic users and advanced users. For example, if you have two hours, schedule the first hour to provide an overview and a walkthrough of using Articulate. Then, the second hour can be spent on more advanced features. If some one wants to attend for the entire time - great! If the more advanced users want to skip the basic stuff they can come in for the second hour.
That's just my two cents! I hope to see one of these sessions near me...
7 Replies
Is it right to assume the audience won't know a lot about the tools as well? I'm asking because one of your questions is "What would it take for you to come to the session," and I would answer that question differently for me than someone new to Articulate.
Good question. They don't normally do vendor sessions so they're trying to get a feel for the audience.
I'd say that at most ASTD local conferences that there will be a wide range of skills and abilities: some advanced and some challenged. Furthermore, depending on the location of this said ASTD local chapter, their skills may be more or less apt. For me, if I want to see what a vendor has then I will talk with that vendor, and I prefer my ASTD seminars to be more abstract or skill oriented. That being said, if you do some combination of skill + articulate like many of your blog postings, then I believe you may have something that can both benefit a wide range of audiences. For example, doing a simulation in Articulate would be a great rapid, elearning seminar including where to find or how to build great simulation type graphics (e.g. people).
For Articulate, I would definitely the Essential Articulate Studio '09 book available and market the elearning heroes site and its plethora of downloads. To answer your questions though, I believe a newbie would want an overview and experienced user would want some customization questions available to be answered.
I think having some demonstrations of Articulate courses that are in use (not just mocked-up courses) would be interesting.
I agree with Will Findlay's recommendation to show real demonstrations of Articulate courses. Adding to that, it would be helpful to show starting with basic techniques and leading into some advanced techniques. Maybe you could capture some of these in screenr demos, that way you would not have to use valuable time in opening and closing several files and clicking everywhere.
One thing I often teach new Articulate developers is how to package up a course and send it to another developer.
As for advanced Articulate developers, I think most would like to feel more comfortable with branching techniques.
I'm overviewing Articulate and showing my lessons at the Austin ASTD ID SIG meeting Thursday evening, and will put your questions to that group, then feed back here.
I haven't seen our pre-session survey results yet, but I suspect it'll be a mixed audience. (As a former-and-future instructor, I still say a heterogeneous audience is the toughest kind, even tougher than a hostile audience - at least the latter are all of one mind.)
I consider myself to be a fairly advanced user of Articulate. Even so, I attended both the basic and advanced workshops at the recent ASTD TechKnowledge Conference in San Jose and found that I learned new things during both sessions. Even advanced users can use a reminder of features that they may have forgotten about or at least learn new ways of using the tools in Presenter, Quizmaker and Engage.. What I would recommend, if possible, is to set a schedule for basic users and advanced users. For example, if you have two hours, schedule the first hour to provide an overview and a walkthrough of using Articulate. Then, the second hour can be spent on more advanced features. If some one wants to attend for the entire time - great! If the more advanced users want to skip the basic stuff they can come in for the second hour.
That's just my two cents! I hope to see one of these sessions near me...
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