Software for Instructional Designers

Hi Bill,

Holding a master in educational sciences and working now 3 years for several customers creating e-learning courses I might be able to share my thoughts.

Your toolbox should be as broad as possible, because it is often up to you as an Instructional Designer to choose the best one for the job at hand. Once you learn the basics of one tool, it helps in mastering other commercial e-learning authoring tools. 

Storyline is a great tool to master because of the directions you can go with the tool. But you should be able to choose the best tool for the job. This is my rule of thumb:

Software Simulation/Captations => Use Adobe Captivate.

Webinar or presenting PowerPoint slides with a host => Use Adobe Presenter.

Courses where you challenge the learner to take control over their learning through interactive screens => Storyline.

Of course there are other tools, but these are the ones that work for me at this point.

Kind regards,

Hi Bill,

Here's my take on this.... and you sort of already touched upon a bit of it in your other post. Amongst my peers, we tend to view it this way...

• There are "IDs" who understand how to learn, retention and can sequence, measure, etc learning for others to then build
• There are "coders" who can build wbt from ground-up either in Flash, or HTML5, etc
• There are "authoring tool users" who use tools such as Captivate, Storyline, Studio, SmartBuilder, etc
• There are "media specialists" who are comfortable manipulating images with Gimp, PhotoShop, et al and recoring audio with SoundForge, Audacity, etc and/or editing video with Vegas, Premiere, AVS4You etc
• There are "desktop publishers" who are adept at typefaces, layout etc using tools like Publisher, Quark, Acrobat Pro, et al

Unfortunately, one can never assume that because someone is accomplished in one area, that they have skils in another. A "coder" for example, may not have decent chops as an ID, or is unable to source and manipulate media effectively on their own.

For me personally.... I don't look for someone who uses a particular tool, but I do assume that knowing that tool might be evidence that they have skills in that particular area.  For example, if I need to hire an ID that can create and publish learning documents independently, I don't care if they know Publisher or Quark. If they know one of the tooks it suggests they have experience in that area and will quickly  be able to learn the tools and processes we use.

So.... As more and more L&D departments/companies move further down the do-more-with-less path, it's good to have some skills in several of the areas listed above. My advice is don't sweat the particular tool, but if you do want to show your breadth of capabilities, then learn one or more tool from each discipline.

Hope this helps,

Bob

Again, thank you for your feedback!

You might consider looking outside of the toolsets and going to coded frameworks. You can make Storyline or Captivate dance with some Rube Goldberg-esque techniques.  But most of the time you'll run into limits. Things you'd like to do but either the tool isn't built for it or you don't have the time to bend the tool to your will. 

I love these from Bret Victor. They aren't game like but the idea of user controlled input to vary output in a "story problem simulation" is a powerful approach:

http://worrydream.com/TenBrighterIdeas/

http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations

http://worrydream.com/Tangle

This is a little different skillset. But the ability to support browser native interactions is probably a more timeless skill. It's also not a one-or-the-other proposition. You can extend Captivate, Storyline, and even Flash further with a foundation in Javascript.

Students at that level might also enjoy this type of interactive conversation:

http://www.jellyvisionlab.com/examples.php

You can build these in Storyline pretty easily. The deeper interactions are a bit more challenging. Having a firm grasp on Web mechanics and Javascript will help with more complex interactions and fancy scoring logic.

I like to think of Storyline as my "hub".

I have Powtoon and Videoscribe to add some "video bling" where required.

I have a network of people that I trust to create deep-level Storyline interactions using conditions and variables that are not really my "thing", create video, and create illustrate for me.

I have voiceover people to extend my own abilities.

I know where to go to get music written if I need it.

I think of our industry as an extended network.

I think the day of the "big elearning company" is rapidly coming to an end except for those who can afford bloated prices. I think the "crowd" will be able to provide everything that is needed so long as someone is there to guide the process - effective project management is still the thing virtually every eLearning piece needs.

 There's only a certain amount I can do on my own. I could learn so much more, but I prefer to be working and generating invoices, and know where my limits are. As each product extends, so I do too - whilst focusing on my core competence - helping people decide what they need to do to grow THEIR business through the 70:20:10 paradigm, (where 70% of what people need to learn is not through formal courses anyway...)

That's what I think anyhow.

Bruce