RKCS Learning Solutions

It’s an excellent thing when companies actually listen to their consumer base and incorporate the features that they are asking for. TechSmith released its version of Camtasia for the Mac a few months ago and “wowed” many with its release. The interface was very un-Windows like and appealed to many dedicated Mac users. Most of these user had been using Telestream’s Screenflow and in fact compared Camtasia to this application. In many ways they were very similar and for the most part a ScreenFlow user had no pressing reason to switch over to Camtasia.

Well, here’s the game changer. TechSmith has just released its 1.1 update for Camtasia for Mac. Prior to this update, Camtasia could only record in full-screen mode. This is also the case with ScreenFlow. Mac users who take advantage of Expose found this fine and worked around it. But if you wanted to record only one specific portion of your screen, you were out of luck or you could use TechSmith’s limited freeware, Jing. Now, with the 1.1 update, TechSmith has included region capture. For those that do not get the difference here, when you have to record full screen, then zoom and crop, aside from the additional steps you must perform, there are subtle differences in pixel clarity. It’s like being forced to take a picture of a crowd and zoom in to one person when you only wanted to take a picture of the one person anyway.

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It’s a new year and we have all made goals and resolutions. Haven’t we? Well, maybe its just me. One of my main goals for this year is to try new things. I know how easy it can be as e-learning providers to get comfortable with our tools and get stuck in its use. The flip side is that we can get sucked into so many new pieces of software and apps that we don’t ever really gain mastery of any of them. That said, I plan to focus a bit more on some of the tools I already use while trying to gain a balance with some new things. Not sure if Jane Hart has created her Top 10 for 2010 yet, but here are a list of 10 tools for 2010 that I am either already using or plan to use:

1. iMac – (Just purchased the 27 inch quad core. It’s a beautiful machine and transfer of all my info has been easy. I will post later on some of the things I am doing with it)

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According to the Associated Press, it’s just about time for the release of Microsoft Office 2010. For some, this may not be a big deal. After all, it’s just Bill Gates & company putting out the latest piece of overpriced software that we obviously can’t do without because it’s bundled somehow in every Windows PC. Right? Well…..exactly. That’s why its a big deal. As an instructional designer or e-learning designer (or ‘elearning’, depending on who is arguing), whether I like the suite or not is irrelevant. Sure, you can storyboard in OpenOffice or pretty much any word processing software. But if you are working with a team and uploading to a centralized location, they are going to ask for a specific format, usually .doc. Additionally, PowerPoint is a huge basis of many rapid e-learning authoring tools such as Articulate Presenter. While I am sure Articulate will make sure that they are able to effectively interface with the new version of Powerpoint, there are still features that I am sure will be added that I will either have to watch out for or learn to incorporate. For some, the addition of motion paths and SmartArt in Office 2007 was a surprise and took some getting used to. The newer document extension, docx, is still an issue for some because some companies have still not upgrade to Office 2007 and therefore exchange of documents that use this extension is impossible. Will Microsoft force us to go towards the .docx or will they return to familiar .doc?

In this new version, Microsoft is adding web version of its apps. If you have used Google docs, then this is a step that Microsoft had to make in order to take advantage of the collaboration/networking market. In a slick move, they are also making this web version free to consumers. Of course, this ‘free’ version is supported by advertising. I am not sure how intrusive that will be but, I am sure there will be something that is intended to gently nudge the consumer toward a purchase.

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So, the Big Question this month is “Do you sometimes feel stuck?” Well, I suppose we all feel that way at one time or the other. You feel stuck in not being able to contribute more. You feel stuck because you may feel like you have run out of ideas, the equivalent of writer’s block. You may feel stuck because…..you literally are! Whatever the reason, it is a feeling that transcends fields, disciplines, careers, paths and generations. Well, let me jump into the questions as they were stated:

Do you sometimes feel stuck?
Sometimes. I would say that it varies from project to project and from client to client. I felt stuck a lot in the beginning because although I had ideas, I didn’t have an understanding of software, principles, networks, resources that dealt directly with this field.

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I’m sure this argument has come up before but I decided to address it because someone asked the question on the Adobe forum the other day (yes, I visit forums to get ideas).  The question?  Which is better, Captivate or Camtasia?  Well, as instructional or eLearning designers, we don’t necessarily want the “best” or most expensive tools. We need the tools that work for us! Therefore, each of these vs arguments is based on perspective. You have to find out about the tools and their capabilities before you pit them against each other. In some cases, you might even find that you need to use the tools collaboratively instead of either/or.

So, with regard to these two specific pieces of software, I believe they were developed with two different ideas in mind. Camtasia is a tool that allows for screen capture, video recording of sorts, PowerPoint recording (meaning that you create your presentation in Powerpoint and then record it playing through as you want it to be seen) and descriptive tutorials. This is excellent for software tutorials or other types of this-is-how-you-do-it tutorials. The ability to use callouts to zoom in on a particular section of the screen is helpful in providing a solid focus to the viewer. Camtasia presents video very smoothly and is able to follow the cursor around the screen if you tell it to do so as you are recording. This is great for real time learning. In fact, if you happen to have more than one computer (a laptop and a desktop, possibly), its actually pretty helpful to play the Camtasia tutorial on one computer while following along with the actual software on another computer. This way you don’t have to flip back and forth between screens.

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