Rapid Low-Cost Mobile Video Versions of Articulate Studio Lessons

Aug 27, 2012

There are probably thousands of e-Learning lessons already produced in Articulate Studio. Since many mobile devices and tablets will not run Flash .SWF files, to make these work on iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, etc. would require rebuilding the lessons in something like Articulate Storyline. This could be time consuming and expensive.

Why not create rapid low-cost mobile video versions for a fraction of the time and cost? These can be made to run on almost all mobiles/tablets. It is also easy to add a modification to the player.html file produced by Articulate Presenter that would automatically detect the user's device and automatically launch the mobile video version instead of the Flash .SWF version when appropriate.

To see a sample, go to http://www.emediainnovations.com/mobile_art (this is a MOODLE LMS, so you must click on "Login as Guest").  If you run this from a PC, you will get the standard Articulate Flash version.  When run from a mobile device (including iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Kindle Fire, Android, and other mobiles/tablets), it will automatically run the mobile video version.

Although such mobile video versions lose "interactivity", many e-Learning lessons have only very limited interactivity to begin with (e.g. click to continue, click to see desired information, click to answer a question, etc.). These mobile video versions have these "interactions" recorded in the video, so the user can clearly see what was selected (e.g. for Engage interactions and QuizMaker quizzes). If desired, additional audio can be added to screens with no narration to enhance the video version, and html entry and exit pages can be added to provide SCORM capability and user tracking. The video can also be segmented into separate files, with an index.html page added to allow users to instantly jump to any desired segment/portion.

We estimate that for many Articulate Studio lessons, mobile/tablet video versions can double accessibility, and be 80% as effective as the Flash lessons for less than 20% of the cost of redeveloping for mobiles in a tool such as Storyline.

What do you think of this approach for offering a rapid low-cost method of accessing Articulate Studio lessons from mobiles/tablets?

Please email jjensen@emediainnovations.com with your comments or questions.

- Jack Jensen

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