Online, Self Paced, Articulate Storyline Training

I agree.  The community tutorials and the ones from Articulate itself are very good.  I use VTC (Virtual Training Corporation) for online software training and I was hoping to see something on Storyline there but so far there hasn't been anything.  Honestly though the tutorials available from Articulate and the community are better than anything I've seen on Lynda or VTC.  I've been able to find answers to literally everything I've had questions about from the Storyline staff and community.  That's why I'm willing to pay so much for their software.

Hi Carla and Steve,
The community space is a clear differentiator in the marketplace and everyone (including me) is a huge fan.

However, neither the current batch of paper based resources nor the web based Articulate tutorial sections - give you an "end-to-end" project to work on from 'start to finish'.  The community efficiently and effectively answers your questions, however rarely "builds" on anything. It’s probably not meant to offer a holistic view, it's more geared to ‘operationally’ answer the here and now, then leave you to figure out anything project based or more strategic.  The community is aligned to "just-in-time-learning" (JIT) so it tends to be a little fragmented and scattered and difficult to cluster responses and answers. There is not much evidence of "action based learning" or any large scale sequence of learning. So users get only a ‘micro-look’ at a particular topic and you are left to figure out the macro view or use higher order Blooms approaches to synthase what you have learnt into the current and/or future projects.  There is little ‘themed content’, little use of 'cluster content' except within the topic you are discussing or the issue you are trying to fix.

Don’t get me wrong the community and content are very useful, however having the option of an online, self-paced, project based learning will be the next level of support maturity model for Storyline global uses.

Here is costing estimate of your current learning/training options:

• Print / Book approach - $40 + support material
• Face to Face instruction: $375 - $650 per day per person
• Webinar one of one: $140 - $200 per hour
• Online, self-paced, project based learning: VTC/Lynda.com, 8 hrs / 99 tutorials = $99

From a training persective, no one is offering this Online, Self Paced, Articulate Storyline Training apporach - yet.

This is represents a hole and opportunity in the market place.

Cheers  Garry

Hi Guys,

Here is an update.....

Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2013
Subject: Articulate Storyline
From: lynda.com
To: garry.hargreaves
CC:

Hi Garry,

Thank you for contacting lynda.com.
We do have Articulate Storyline in production. The release date is still unknown, but we are expecting the course to come out this quarter.

...be interested to know who is producing this.

Bruce

Why not get your hands dirty and learn it the old fashioned way?

Create some of your own tests and start pushing buttons.

When you get stumped, look at the storyline guide and take a chance and start pushing buttons.

I'm a little perplexed....all this time spent talking about finding a way to learn something when you 

could have spent the time learning all the actions in AS that you need and use with trial and error and had it mastered by now.

Nothing beats taking action, for speed of response and giving you the clues or exact answers to your specific questions.

Odds are that this is how Lynda will be creating it instructional tutorial.

I applaud the tutorials here and those provided by AS, they blow away most other trainings on somewhat technical software

They give me exactly what i need to understand the product.

If I have any small gaps, i fill in on my own by digging into the software myself.

I completely agree with John Bart. That's how I learned AS - getting in to it and creating some training then using the Articulate Community to augment my learning. Whenever I've had a question about something, I've found the answer (whether I like the answer or not!) in the Community. I've found that whenever I need to learn new tool, just getting in to it and playing around with the features is the best way to learn what's available to me. Supplementing with an awesome Community like the Articulate Community is just icing on the cake!

Not everyone likes learning from a community like this. Reality.

Some like learning from a Book.

Some like learning from the Online Tutorials - yet as pointed out, very often they do not go deep enough.

Some like exposing their lack of knowledge and asking on a forum.

Some do not like exposing their lack of knowledge and asking on a forum.

Some like learning "old skool" using a classroom, or a telephone call.

I learn daily from a variety of sources. I know that, for example, had I just learned Variables by "getting my hands dirty" that I would still just have dirty hands, and be no further forward. I needed the detailed "further tuition" mentioned by Garry.

I think there's a place for everything - trial and error is all fair and good, except for when you end up making lots of trial and error, and no headway, a place I have certainly been.

Bruce

Gary has a good point. That specific type of training approach is non-existent. People learn differently.

Like John suggests, I like just digging in and taking things apart to see how they work. When I get stuck, I find a quick tutorial or discussion around that specific topic until I understand it enough to fly on my own. The rest is just time invested.

However, I respect those who learn in a face-to-face environment with a guided instructor. I, too offer that approach > http://nuggethead.net/storyline/storyline-training.html

For what it's worth I've been designing a self-paced course. The one thing that keeps it from being completely autonomous are the checks and balance - the "Am I doing this right?" One can review an online tutorial a number of times until they are comfortable, but building a course from start to finish on your own *while* learning a new software is a different approach altogether.

This is an interesting discussion. I also learn best by just jumping in and trying things for myself and taking things apart to see how they work. When I get stuck, I like good reference materials (documentation, videos, forums).  

While I like the screener tutorials that Articulate produces, they are not my favourite way to get information because I am usually just looking for info on how to do one thing and have to sit through the entire presentation to get the bit that I need.

I may be old school, but I really like detailed reference manuals that are geared more towards intermediate or advanced users.  I think this type of information is lacking right now.

The other thing I think is lacking is, as Garry says, an end-to-end workflow for people who are just starting out. It would be nice if there was an online course or document that stepped users through how to build a story from scratch and them maybe supplement this with a series of short tutorials on how to use the various features.

A healthy discussion is always useful. I agree with Bruce, it would be interesting to know who is developing this learning resource. It would be a disappointment if a developer was now madly learning SL and did not come from this forum. I must admit after a little research, it was a little surprising that none of the existing F2F training folk, had not taken their training to a global audience?

Personally, I think the best training you can get is one on one - that is one participant, one instructor. The problem is most training companies with overheads, staff, admin etc. would go broke delivering in that modality. That’s why most main-stream training organisations have minimum participant numbers and will cancel the class if the breakeven point (fees to cover the trainer, cover the venue, add some profit) is not achieved. So this approach tends to be very expensive.

F2F in a class situation is great; all that peer interaction, well sequenced curriculum etc, but what if you’re not in that state, or even in that country? What about if you work during the day? When was the last time you attended a F2F training session after 9:00pm when the kids have gone to bed? F2F is great but you need to be at a certain location, at a certain time, for a certain duration and that does not suit everyone.

Books are great however they sometimes resemble an explanation of what the menu items do. Great to curl up with in bed, great reference material. I like flicking through the pages and finding the gem of information to use in the next project.

The Forums the ultimate SL support at low/no costs, pretty much answer any question in lightning speed by experts, but as previous mentioned – (Nancy) no ‘end to end’ workflow, little use of project based learning or ‘action learning’.

Webinars, big fan but they are really expensive live. Most webinars are recorded these days, however I could not find anyone offering this recorded service in the Storyline space.

The VTC/Lynda.com model and approach. Is usually project based, any-time, any-where, global reach, at low cost. Offers a F2F styled curriculum pathway, perfect supplement for the SL forums. However, currently this is not an option for any global SL users.

Recently I put a professor from Griffith University on to Storyline. I actually tried to guide her towards Presenter as she is relatively new to eLearning, but that’s a different story. I got her started, but I have a day job and she wants to work at her own pace (note to self: re-read self-directed, annoying adult learning principles and pedagogy before recommending software next time). The thing is she found the forums intimidating and it left her with no real place to “start at one level of understanding” and progressively move to a “higher level of understanding”. Hence my original post and subsequent discussion. She liked the books, but wanted to produce something as part of her learning process.

As Articulate products reach a critical mass and gain market share and acceptance, a mainstream mass training organisation like Lynda.com and VTC will start to notice this training opportunity. I see this as a complement for Articulate the organisation, for example all Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft products are represented on Lynda.com and VTC sites. I notice there is no such representation for Trivantis software, flypaper, Suddenly Smart or any other authoring tools represented on these sites, so kudos to Articulate.

I’m not really advocating one training approach over another. The bottom line is, as many have already commented, everyone learns differently, a simple VAK (VARK) learning style test will highlight this. There is an obvious (I would say) gaping hole in the SL training market. I would rather this training (and business) opportunity be addressed by someone from within this forum, hell wouldn’t it be cool to have input into what was covered in the program? Now back to searching for conditional variables screenr’s J.

Cheers

Garry

WARNING:  This just occurred to me and I haven't thought it through so it may not be such a great idea.

Almost everyone in these forums designs training for a living.  I wonder if we could come up with a group project that anyone interested could work on.  It could serve as hands-on training and we could actually break the project up into modules so we could teach/learn to do the different parts together.  For example, the project might call for triggers that change the states of various objects.  There are several different ways to do this.  Some involve changing the state when a variable is set to a certain value.  Others change the state when a button is clicked.  Some methods are better than others but all will work.  

Maybe we could design a learning game.  Changing states would be part of it.  A scoreboard could be used to learn about variables and how to increment them.  Again, I'm just typing as I think (rambling) but I think this has possibilities.  I've been very impressed with the thoughtfulness of this discussion thread.  There are some really intelligent people weighing in on this topic.  I don't think this fully meets the requirements of self-paced online instruction but it may be a step in that direction.

Thoughts?

Interesting discussion.

Actually I may need something before a little more basic before an actual online course that shows you how to put something together.

I have a client that may first need more of an overview type of online presentation on Storyline, especially for those coming from the Articulate Suite to Storyline.  Something that shows in brief these main feature differences, probably in an "explore them in your order" format.

That link is to an old blog post - if you want to access the complete list of tutorials, go here

http://community.articulate.com/tutorials/products/about-the-articulate-tutorials.aspx

Thanks, Nancy!

Good point of clarification.I should have been more deliberate about why I liked that page. The page contains alllatest screencasts shared by Articulate. Example, the Presenter tutorials page:http://www.articulate.com/blog/articulate-presenter-tutorials/

Latest on Storyline training via lynda.com:

Hello Susan,

Thank you for contacting lynda.com.

We really appreciate hearing from you regarding ideas for educational material you would like to see added to the library. Currently, we do not have Articulate Storyline training in production. However, we keep every request on file, and your request has been forwarded to our Title Development team for consideration.

Stay tuned to lynda.com for new releases, or keep tabs on us through the blog, our Facebook fan page, or Twitter.

Hi all, this has been a hot topic where I work as well.  I fall into the camp of John and others as far as learning things for myself , but understand that others want a more structured, end-to-end path.  

We use Lynda.com heavily for this sort of thing on Adobe tools (Captivate, Flash, etc).  Their lack of coverage for Articulate tools is a big gap I think.  It seems like we have some contradicting sources on their plans for Storyline showing in this thread, so I just sent them a message to clarify.  I'll post back once I have a reply.

Update for those interested...this was my reply from the fine folks at lynda.com:

"Thank you for contacting lynda.com.  We have verified with our Production Team that we currently have approval to begin the production process for this course [Articulate Storyline].  However, an author has not been found and this has delayed the production of the course.  Unfortunately, we do not have a date of release at this time. "

I would do it

Have at it!

http://www.lynda.com/aboutus/callfortrainers.aspx

submission sent

Phil - did you get a reply from Lynda.com yet?

I've talked to them. It's already in the works.