What Everybody Ought To Know About Using PowerPoint for E-learning

Great post. Well done.

Will M

The demo gives me some ideas on how to build the training course I am doing right now. Have you tried using a sharepoint site inside a course yet?

M. Albertson

I like the way the wiki works inside the slide. Is there a way to adjust the size of the wiki so that I can get more screen space?

tom

Thanks for the feedback. The slide size is fixed. However when you insert the web object on the slide you can resize it (within the constraints of the slide size). Another option is to have it open the wiki in another window. This gives you the full screen. The only caution is that if the learner has a pop up blocker, the wiki might be blocked from opening.

G. Persichilli

Great post. This is definitely something to start incorporating into our training.

Brian Greenleaf

I enjoy ALL of your posts, but this one is GREAT. Nothing I didn’t know already and have been touting for years, but very well presented indeed.

Keep up the excellent posts.

SAC

Excellent. I learned a lot from these tips. Keep the postings coming. Thank you

Laura Jaffrey

Hi, I already had an account at wikispaces and was surprised to see my username and password already there when the wiki loaded. Your presentation has fueled more ideas I can use for my training projects. Many thanks.

tom

While I used an internet resource the cool thing is that you can use any internal website in your training. That means you can link to sharepoint, internal websites, etc. You’re not limited by the internet.

Ben Boozer

I was admiring the quality of your screen capture video. Would you mind describing your workflow? I am interested in the tool used for the capture, flash conversion software, final file size of the Outlook example, etc.

tom

Good question, Ben. I am not sure what was used. I got the .swf from a friend’s asset folder. The slide parameters are 720×540. I imagine that you can use any of the screen capture programs that output to swf. I don’t do a lot of them, but got used to using Wink when I was at school.

Monique P.

Do you remember this old comic strip called “There ought to be a law”? Well, that’s what I think whenever I hear someone suggesting that PowerPoint “doesn’t work well for learning.” I’ve used Powerpoint in each of the three manners for which you provided an example. The greatest part about using Powerpoint is that it is a tool almost everyone has some familiarity with. For example, I have students using Powerpoint to employ branching logic for health science diagnoses — the plus is that it’s a simple tool that can be used in a sophisticated way. Recently, I learned about Powerpoint User Conference. I visited the site and discovered even more useful training/learning ideas. Here’s the link: http://www.altman.com/conferences/powerpoint_live/expo.htm.

John McConchie

What a great post! I found myself wanting to have a look at some of the Powerpoint slides themselves, to review your use of animation, etc. Do you have them available somewhere? If the question is overly bold, forgive me. I learned a lot from the Articulate demo itself. Cheers.

tom

You’re right Monique. The key is to not be dogmatic. I can do a lot of things in PPT faster than I can in other tools. Why would I want to use a more cumbersome tool if I can do it this way. It’s not an end all, but it’s a great starting point.

John, email me and I can get you a copy of the PPT files. The Engage links and audio won’t be with it, but you can see how the file was assembled.

Mark Cornwell

Tom, I remembered to find the blog to reply rather than just typing an email back to you!

Another great post. Your emails have rapidly hit the top of those that I most look forward to reading when I open the training in-tray.

I love how you’re bringing together the different elements. My own experience of this has hit a few glitches – namely with big corporates who want to have their hands around everything. You said about YouTube and firewalls, Wikispaces would be another example.

Sometimes what ought to be a rapid learning development is mired by the client’s technical requirements.

Is there a simple answer that holds most of these tools within it, that a client could load once for a quick learning intervention?

Moodle is one that springs to mind. There must be others (presumably Articulate has one too).

Mike Juhl

links for 2007-10-04 | The Marketing Technology Blog

Another great post! As a long time user of Articulate products I was aware of the many features available in Presenter and Engage but still occasionally get tunnel vision when creating my content. This post helped to open my eyes to some new possibilities. As with an earlier comment, I too was really impressed with the quality of the screen capture and wish mine could look that good. If anyone figures out how this was done let us know. Thanks!

[…] What Everybody Ought To Know About Using PowerPoint for E-learning It’s not the first time I sat through a PowerPoint session where the presenter was telling me that PowerPoint is ineffective for training. (tags: powerpoint tips) […]

tom

Mark, that’s a good question. A product like Moodle works because it incorporates a lot of the social media tools. I’d stick with what organizations already use (if they’re locked down). Many have SharePoint and wikis. A lot of them just don’t tell everybody that they have them. I used to work in an IT group and there was software that was available like SharePoint and OneNote (one of my favorite pieces of software) at the enterprise level but it wasn’t advertised.

You could try to build the case for a wiki or forum by building a demo similar to this one and then showing it to the client.

Mike, I’ll see if I can find the source of the swf. The quality is very good.

classbuilder

Tom,

How do you produce your narration? Directly in PP or Presenter? Or do you import?

tom

Making Change » Using Keynote to create Flash

Classbuilder: it depends. I like to record on the fly when it’s me doing the course, so I’ll use Presenter’s record narration. However, if I work with someone else, I like to use another tool like Audacity. I import the narration and then quickly sync any animations. Using Audacity helps me control the recording in case I have to do retakes at a different time or setting.

October 8th, 2007

[…] or include in a larger course. For example, you could quickly build some Flashes with Keynote, then include them in an Articulate Presenter course. These days, I’m putting short Flashes in a wiki-based course and having a great time doing […]

Doug Emmerich

October 12th, 2007

Tom – What are three compelling reasons for developing a style guide?
I have tried to convince my boss, a PhD in ed, that our online courses need a style guide. Too many developers over too many years have resulted in too many styles. The idea keeps getting dismissed as not important.
Thanks

Andree

What a nice blog you have!!! Congratulation. I also like the visual aspect of your elearning blog, as well as your nice advice. This PowerPoint section is exactly what I like to do and I was very impressed. Thanks for your great valuable advices!

tom

Andree – Thanks for the feedback and thanks for reading the blog.

tom

Doug – That’s a good question and subject for a blog post. I’ll send you a private email. I have mixed feelings about style guides. If anyone else has opinions about this feel free to share or send me your 3 pro or cons.

Shannon

Great site! However, I noticed that the link to the ppt file in this article (http://www.articulate.com/community/blogdemo/blog_demo.ppt)
points to a different presentation – something about steve jobs.

Do you have a link to the actual original ppt file you used in your demo?

Thanks!

tom