Guest post by Kevin Siegel, Founder and President, IconLogic, Inc.
Often times the hardest part about creating an eLearning course is getting started. Many people struggle with the look and feel of the individual lessons, quality images, and workable scenarios. You’ll be happy to learn that Adobe Presenter provides some wonderful tools that will help get your eLearning course jump-started. I’m talking specifically about Presenter’s Scenes, Characters and Scenarios.
Scenes are helpful when you’re trying to quickly create an eLearning course, but you don’t have the time to draw the background elements to support the slides. To use Presenter’s Scenes, you can begin with something as simple as a brand new PowerPoint presentation. On the Adobe Presenter tab, Insert group, you simply click the Scene tool.
After clicking the OK button, the selected Scene will be added to your PowerPoint slide and automatically sized to fit perfectly on the slide.
Finding quality, royalty-free photographs (especially of people that you can use throughout your lessons as guides) is always a challenge. Fortunately, Presenter ships with a wonderful assortment of Characters (via the Adobe Presenter Insert group). There are four Character categories (Business, Casual, Illustrated and Medicine), most containing multiple models and poses.
In the image below, I’ve clicked the Character tool (from the Insert group) and selected Medicine from the category drop-down menu. From there, I’ve selected Christine as my actor and selected one of her poses.
After clicking the OK button, Christine shows up on my Scene. From there, I can move, resize and further manipulate the Character like any other PowerPoint slide object.
Scenarios combine the concept of Scenes and Characters, but take both to a new level. When adding a Scenario, you can choose from four categories: Business, Call Center, Generic and Medical. Once you’ve added the Scenario, you’ll find that you’ve got several slides, each allowing for learner interactivity via a series of clickable areas. Depending on what the learner decides to click, the Scenario provides a different learner experience.
To begin, create and then save a PowerPoint presentation. On the Adobe Presenter Insert group, click the Interaction drop-down menu and choose Insert Scenario Interaction. In the image below, I’ve selected the Business category.
After clicking the OK button, several slides will be added to your Presentation, each containing objects that have already been hyperlinked between the slides. From here, all you need to do is edit the objects with your desired text, add additional slides as needed, and Publish the lesson as either a SWF or PDF.
Whether you’re a veteran eLearning developer or new to the industry, I think you’ll find that Adobe Presenter’s Scenes, Characters and Scenarios will get your eLearning course off on the right foot… and in record time.
Looking for live, instructor-led training on Adobe Presenter 9? IconLogic is offering a one-day class covering Presenter’s Interactions, Quizzes, Scenarios, Data Reporting features, Publishing, and more. You can learn more by visiting http://www.iconlogic.com/featured-live-online-training/adobe-presenter-9-live-online-class.html.