Adobe Captivate 7 for Mobile Learning Create mobile-friendly and interactive m-learning content with Adobe Captivate 7 Damien Bruyndonckx BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI Adobe Captivate 7 for Mobile Learning Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information. First published: August 2013 Production Reference: 1200813 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK. ISBN 978-1-84969-955-6 www.packtpub.com Cover Image by Abhishek Pandey ([email protected]) Credits Author Project Coordinator Damien Bruyndonckx Deenar Satam Reviewers Proofreader Joe Ganci Joel T. Johnson Anita Horsley Lieve Weymeis Indexer Hemangini Bari Acquisition Editor Kunal Parikh Production Coordinator Kyle Albuquerque Commissioning Editor Harsha Bharwani Cover Work Kyle Albuquerque Technical Editor Pratik Vijay More Foreword Smart phones and tablets have changed the way people learn. The power of these nifty gadgets is helping them move from formal learning to an anytime and anywhere learning environment. The spike in the trends of "Just in Time" and "On Demand" learning have also increased the demand for deploying learning snacklets to mobile devices. These trends have made it essential for e-learning professionals to learn how to create m-learning courses. As always, there are different people with different requirements. Some want to create mobile learning courses, specifically designed for mobile devices. Some want to reuse existing e-learning courses and transform them to m-learning courses, and there are others who wish to make their existing e-learning courses available on mobile devices as well. Adobe Captivate 7 is a rapid authoring tool, which allows the authors to create simulations, compliance training courses, scenario-based courses, video-based courses, process trainings, assessments, and so on. It is now also capable of creating m-learning courses by allowing you to publish your courses in HTML5 format and create web apps. In this book, Damien has done a great job of explaining how to use Adobe Captivate 7 for creating m-learning courses. He has provided a step-by-step procedure on how to create mobile-friendly screencasts, interactive simulations, and quizzes. He has covered all of the nuances and best practices for optimizing an existing project for mobile, and publishing it as an HTML5 course or a web application. So, if you are an e-learning professional and have been using Captivate for years for creating e-learning courses, this book will help you easily transition to m-learning development using the very same tool. Happy learning! Dr Pooja Jaisingh Adobe e-learning Evangelist About the Author Damien Bruyndonckx, trained as an elementary school teacher, began his career teaching French as a foreign language in two elementary public schools of Louisiana, USA. In 2001, he came back to his home country, Belgium, and began to work as an IT trainer. He soon acquired the title of Adobe Certified Instructor on Dreamweaver, Coldfusion, Acrobat, and Captivate, which allowed him to work for various Adobe authorized training centers in Europe, and participate in many web and e-learning related projects for countless customers. In 2009, Damien went back to teaching in a school. He now works at IHECS, a higher education school of communications, based in Brussels, where he teaches multimedia and serves as the e-learning coordinator of the school. Thanks to his work at IHECS, Damien became an Adobe Education Leader in November 2011. Damien also has his own company that provides Adobe Training and e-learning consultancy. Damien is the author of Mastering Adobe Captivate 6 published by Packt Publishing in August 2012. He lives in Thuin (Belgium) with his girlfriend and his two children. Damien is a big time music lover, and occasionally works as a sound and light technician in the entertainment industry. Twitter: @damienbkx Website: http://www.dbr-training.eu Acknowledgement With the release of this book, a new adventure comes to an end. This one was made of hard work, heavy thinking, and deep moments of doubts. But, as with every adventure in life, it was also made of great collaboration, encounters and love. At the end of the road, when you finally hold the book in your hands, you only remember those great people you worked with and who dedicated part of their time and expertise to the project. I would like to thank my editors at Packt Publishing for their continuous support and mentoring during the entire writing process. Harsha and Deenar, knowing that you were just an e-mail away was really reassuring for me. Many thanks to you! I would also like to recognize the work of my reviewers. Anita, Lieve, and Joe are among the greatest Captivate minds I know. It was an honor to have them onboard this project. They have my deep appreciation for the work done with this book and with the entire Captivate community. Speaking of the community, I would like to recognize the work of those individuals that spend some of their free time writing Captivate tutorials, blog posts, forum replies, and so on. These boys and girls have been my real Captivate teachers, and without their input, I would never have been able to become a Captivate expert. I dedicate this book to all those who make the Captivate community a very active, focused, and truly knowledgeable community. My thoughts also go to the Captivate team in India that is working really hard to create and enhance Captivate on a daily basis. Special thanks to Allen, Pooja, Vish, Shammeer, Akshay, and to everyone else in their respective teams. I have full respect for the work they are doing. Finally, my thoughts go to those who share my life on a daily basis. They had to cope with my insane working hours and my "out of this world" preoccupations while I was writing this book. Thanks you Celine, Antoine, and Sophie for your patience and understanding. I couldn't do it without you all. About the Reviewers Joe Ganci is an e-learning consultant with a long track record. Since 1983, Joe's design approaches and his expert use of development tools have helped many to improve their e-learning design and development. Joe's personal and hands-on style has his services constantly in demand, and he is privileged to have visited many clients all over the world. He has taught people for many years at client sites, and has taught at many learning conferences, where he has often served as a keynote speaker. Joe is on a mission to improve the quality of e-learning with practical approaches that work. Joe and his team designs and develops e-learning applications from start to finish, from analysis to evaluation, and assist at every level in between. He is a renowned trainer of development tools everywhere in the world, and collaborates with tool vendors to help bridge the gap between design needs and tool offerings. Joe can be found at his site www.elearningjoe.com, where you will also find many useful tools to assist you in your own e-learning needs. Joe has four books on e-learning development, more coming. Anita Horsley is passionate about all forms of teaching and education. She has been a teaching instructor and has led train-the-trainer courses since 1998. As a firefighter, she was a state and national level Instructor III and as a personal trainer, she received train-the-trainer fitness certification through AFFA and IFA. As the Training and Development Specialist for the Oregon State Fire Marshal, she implemented, from inception, the eLearning track and has been designing and developing eLearning courses for adult learners since 2009. She has a Masters degree in Education and is an Adobe Certified Expert in Captivate. Currently, she is the founder and president of CALEX Learning Consultants. She also works with Engage Systems teaching Adobe Captivate to local and state government agencies and is an adjunct instructor for Portland Community College. She is an author for Packt Publishing, having published Fast Track to Adobe Captivate 6 - a tutorial course with forty 3 to 5 minute videos that teaches the fundamentals of using Adobe Captivate. She also provides one-on-one online instructions for Adobe Captivate. Horsley is even a presenter on eLearning and Adobe Captivate at conferences nationally. Simultaneously, Horsley writes a blog, Crazy About Captivate, which provides written and video tutorials on Adobe Captivate. She also provides webinars for ASTD and Adobe. She is a technical reviewer for Packt Publishing as well. Horsley works with the Charleston Animal Society teaching elementary schools kids about the humane treatment to animals and volunteers at Charleston Area Therapeutic Riding, working with kids who have various disabilities but riding horses. CALEX Learning Consultants, LLC provides technology-based training solutions to business, local, and state agencies. We provide creative eLearning project design, course/curriculum development, and management of education efforts that are focused on customers’ direct goals. Additionally, we train customers on how to build eLearning through the use of Adobe Captivate offering one-on-one web-based instructions and group instructor-led training. Simultaneously, we provide consultation, project planning, and deployment. Our key focus is to develop exceptional engaging and interactive adult educational programs that positively affect agency goals and objectives. Lieve Weymeis is a civil engineer and professional musician. After years of research in stability of shell constructions, she started as a college lecturer in departments of Construction/Real Estate, teaching several technical courses and ICT. In Flanders, she is known as a specialist in project management, blended learning, and e-learning. As head of the Department of Construction, she introduced new pedagogical methodologies. Presently she is doing research work on blended learning, e-learning, and social media; developing e-learning courses and trains in Photoshop, Indesign, Captivate, and Presenter. As a beta-tester, she was invited to be a member of the Advisory Board for Captivate in 2009. In 2011 she became an AEL and ACE, and was granted an Impact award. She is an active member of the Captivate Community on the user forums, Twitter and Linkedin. She presented several webinars for Adobe, and sessions/workshop at DevLearn 2011 and 2012. Her blog http://blog.lilybiri.com is a reference for worldwide Captivate users.