Online learning, or Elearning, is an industry that has exploded in recent years. Indeed, if you have ever watched a tutorial or how-to video on YouTube, then you’ve participated in a type of Elearning.
As the internet makes delivering information both free and easy, Elearning has been a growth industry for close to a decade. This also means that there are nearly endless varieties of Elearning.
In this article
- What Is Adobe Captivate?
- Why Adobe Captivate
- Features Overview
- Easy for Team Projects
- Design For Multiple Platforms
- Pre-Built Themes
- Pre-Made Assets
- Convert Existing PowerPoints to Captivate
- Virtual Reality Walkthrough Creation
- Multi-Module Branched Courses
- How to Use Adobe Captivate’s Free Trial
- Keep in Mind
Adobe Captivate is one of the best and most intuitive tools out there to start authoring Elearning content. This intuitive software is designed for accessibility, meaning you don’t have to become a professional video producer to use it effectively. Read on to find out more about this Elearning software.
What Is Adobe Captivate?
Let’s start with the basics. Adobe Captivate can help you create dynamic courses, demonstrations, and interactive VR content through templates or fully customizable code.
If you want Elearning to be an active (rather than a passive) experience, Adobe Captivate is an effective tool. As the name suggests, Adobe Captivate seeks to help you captivate an audience. It does so by making your content engaging, interactive, and easy to understand with clean visual aids.
Adobe Captivate lets you create content that previously might have required advanced knowledge of video or sound editing. For instance, you can make voiceovers, video overlays, and screen captures with just one click. This focus on accessibility makes it particularly beneficial for all kinds of Elearners and teachers.
Why Adobe Captivate
The best thing about Adobe Captivate is that it can be as simple or complex as you need.
There are many pre-made templates, drag-and-drop design tools, and one-click solutions to implement any features you want in your mobile course.
Adobe recently introduced Quick Start Projects to Captivate. In addition, instantly usable slides and interactions make course creation an intuitive and fast process. The most recent update also includes automated branching and style copying so you can convert multiple objects to one style. As well, you can edit SVGS and convert them into buttons.
What’s more, you can add an extra dimension of interactivity by adding overlay slides over objects at any stage of your video. These are known as hotspots, which are interactive triggers that can include text or graphics.
Features Overview
Adobe Captivate is effective for any size of project, individual or team-based. The easy User Experience (UX) lets you create courses that previously would have required specialized knowledge. Here are the best features of Adobe Captivate at a glance:
Easy for Team Projects
If you’re working with a team, you can storyboard your course and submit it for review on Adobe Captivate Draft. What’s more, you can share assets and versions through the Creative Cloud. It’s a helpfully streamlined experience.
Design For Multiple Platforms
By clicking ‘Save As’ in Adobe Captivate you will automatically convert your course to the appropriate platform. Whether mobile, web, or audio, you won’t need to do extensive re-designs to publish on multiple platforms.
Fluid boxes are completely customizable, while an integrated course preview feature lets make sure that your content scales for different devices.
Pre-Built Themes
You never need to work from scratch or be an expert visual designer. You may even get new ideas for your course based on their templates. There are quite a few ready-to-go themes, so this is especially helpful for the complete beginner.
Pre-Made Assets
Adobe Captivate’s premade assets can be valuable for Elearning. For instance, there are quiz slides as well as plug-and-play functionality, such as click and reveal and drag and drop. Along with a text-to-speech feature, these can all be customized and tailored to specific courses and content.
Convert Existing PowerPoints to Captivate
You can easily import your Powerpoint files into Captivate and start adding interactive elements immediately. If you’ve taught anything from academic to creative pursuits, you probably have a PowerPoint of important information somewhere. Once you import it to Captivate, you can convert it to a video and add interactive questions and voice-overs among other elements.
Virtual Reality Walkthrough Creation
This is especially helpful for training videos and virtual tours. If you want to train students to use equipment they may not have physical or financial access to, then you can give them a virtual rundown as if they were in the room with you.
Multi-Module Branched Courses
Branching tools ensure you won’t need a preexisting knowledge of programmers. Now, you’ll be able to establish that your students have completed their assigned modules before they take on a quiz.
How to Use Adobe Captivate’s Free Trial
If this is a new tool for you, then you can get a free Adobe Captivate download. This is a free trial valid for 30 days after which you will have to buy it. During this time you’ll have access to the full version of Adobe Captivate Prime.
A significant advantage of Adobe Captivate is its easy learning curve. But you’ll want to make the most of your free trial to make a final decision. In addition to spending time learning the tool on your own, you can use Adobe’s free Elearning library.
Here, you can access past Captivate Elearning projects to download and re-purpose or use as inspiration for your project.
Keep in Mind
Adobe Captivate is a powerful tool that lets anyone become part of the Elearning community. With Captivate, navigating complex software or acquiring new skills is straight-forward.
Online learning is a fantastic way for learners to go at their own pace and for teachers to create highly customizable and engaging content.
Elearning courses are easily accessible to almost anyone provided they have an electronic device and internet access. Content creators can create courses that reach far more people than can be found in a single classroom or workplace.
Captivate and other tools can only do so much for you. Remember to put the finishing touches on any explanatory video with the right voice talent. And if you need more content creation inspiration then read the Voices blog.
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