Here are some free images for interactive scenarios. They go with the other free images I shared earlier. I use them for practice files in our e-learning workshops where we learn to build interactive, branched scenarios. They’re perfect for your scenario-based training and free to use.

These images are focused on hallways and such and a bit more generic with the white walls.

As you can see below, they’re perfect for staging conversations and scenarios and they work great with both the photographic and illustrated characters that come with Articulate 360.

As noted in the previous post, one tip is to add all of the images to a single file and then you can dynamically switch the backgrounds as you need. Open the master slide and create a layout for each image. Save the file as a template and you’re all set. Here’s a tutorial that shows how to create templates for reusable interactive scenarios.

Free Downloads

• Branched Scenario Background Images – Hallways
• Branched Scenario Background Images – Offices
• Branched Scenario Background Images – Illustrations

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

I’ve been playing around with ideas to get old Flash course content into a new HTML5 course. There are tens of thousands of old Flash-based e-learning courses where people no longer have the source files. All they have are published versions of the course and need to convert to HTML5.

Grabbing the media like images, video, and audio is usually not as challenging. But moving all of the text can be a hassle.

In a previous post we discovered how to use screenshots and OCR to extract the text from the old course screens. Another way to get the text into your slide is by reading it out loud to transcribe it and insert into your slide. I like this approach because you it’s easy and you have to go through the content anyway. Reading it out loud may help you think through the tone and some script changes you’ll make in the new HTML5 course.

There are applications you can buy to do the recording and transcription, but I want to focus on tools you already have that won’t cost anything more.

Use PowerPoint to Transcribe Text for HTML5 E-Learning

The new version of PowerPoint [this only works for Office 365 subscribers] has a dictate feature. All you do is press the button and start to read. PowerPoint transcribes the text and adds it to the slide. Then you make your edits. You can also send the file out to be verified and edited by others who use PowerPoint. Once it’s ready, import the slides into Storyline.

• View the tutorial here.

Use Google Docs to Transcribe Text for HTML5 E-Learning

Some of you use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office. In Google Docs, under the Tools tab, you’ll find a Voice Typing feature. Just press it and it starts to record. If I speak clearly, I find it to be very accurate. Once the text is on the page, send it around to be verified and approved. And then copy and paste it into your HTML 5 course.

• View the tutorial here.

Use Windows to Transcribe Text for HTML5 E-Learning

Microsoft Windows 10 has a transcription feature that works to transcribe text right into Storyline. Press Windows + h keys to open the narration window. Start talking and it will do the transcription. It’s not quite as fast or accurate as the solutions above, but it makes up for it by recording right into the Storyline slide or Rise lesson. If you’re using Windows 7, you can leverage the speech recognition feature.

• View the tutorial here.

So, there you have it, three easy ways to read the text from old Flash-based courses to get them into your new HTML5 course that you can update and edit as needed. Then publish it for HTML5 and you are all set.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

Many of you have to convert old Flash courses to HTML5. All you have is the published course but not the original source files. It’s easy enough to extract the media (like images and video) from the published output. But adding text from the old course isn’t as easy because most Flash courses don’t allow selecting text to copy and paste. And who wants to spend hours retyping the text?

Here are a couple of simple ways to copy the text from old Flash e-learning courses that you can add to updated HTML5 e-learning courses without having to retype everything. This works whether you’re using Storyline or Rise.

Use OneNote to Convert Text from Image for Flash to HTML5 Courses

Many of you have OneNote. It’s a great application included in the Microsoft Office products. OneNote has a screen capture feature and the option to copy text from the captured image.

• Play the old Flash-based course and capture screens using OneNote’s screen clipping feature (or insert an image captured from some other application).
• Right-click on the image to copy text from the picture.
• Once you have the text copied, paste into your new slide.
• Watch the tutorial on YouTube.

Use ShareX to Convert Text from Images for Flash to HTML5 Courses

ShareX is free and works great. I use it quite a bit to do screenshots for uploading to various image sites. It also has an OCR feature where it can pull text from an image that can be copied and pasted into a new slide.

• Choose text capture (OCR).
• Select the course slide.
• ShareX extracts the text from the image.
• Copy and paste the text into the new slide.
• Watch the tutorial on YouTube.

Those are two free to low-cost options to quickly get the text from previous e-learning courses.  Many of you already own OneNote, and if you don’t, you can always use the free ShareX application to do your screen grabs and OCR text conversion. Once you have the text, it’s easy enough to copy and paste it into your new course.

Obviously, this is still a bit tedious, but it is an easy way to get the text from your old e-learning courses when you no longer have the source files or original content.

I hope that helps.

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.