Guru Honorable Mention: Navigator Game by David Becker
This post by Articulate Community Manager Jeanette Brooks features one of the Honorable Mentions from the 2010 Articulate Guru Awards. To see other award-winning courses from the Guru Awards, check out the posts here.
When David Becker of Becker Consulting set out to develop an e-learning course for the 2010 Articulate Guru Awards, he decided to go way out of the box.
Dave created a prototype of a problem-solving simulation, where learners find themselves at the helm of a ship with a storm brewing ahead. Learners need to make wise use of resources — such as radar information, navigation charts, the ship’s files, and advice from a navigation mentor — in order to make their way to safety before their time runs out.
Step onboard and try your hand at Dave’s Navigator Game (select topic 5 on the launch screen):
What did the judges love about Dave’s course? His unique game-based approach was super-creative and clever. The use of an Engage Labeled Graphic at the beginning of the course was a great way to introduce the scenario options, and the cinematic sound effects and visual elements throughout the course made the simulation not only engaging, but convincing! (If you tend toward seasickness, remember: just keep your eyes on the horizon when you’re on the boat slides!)
Judges really liked the way Dave leveraged so many of Quizmaker’s features without making the course feel at all like a quiz. He incorporated a timer, rich feedback, and customizations within Quizmaker’s slide view to tailor the slides’ visual design. Another standout was the brevity and tension created by the captain’s video messages at key points throughout the course. And the judges noted that Dave made great use of Articulate Presenter’s player tabs. He used the tabs for content that he crafted in Articulate Engage, so that learners could access resources to help in their decision-making. Dave’s PowerPoint effects, such as the animated course-progression map learners see when they answer correctly, also contributed a lot to the dynamic feel of the course.
David provides a quick tour of his Navigator course, along with some how-tos, in this screencast:
View this screencast at Screenr
Fantastic work, Dave — thanks for sharing your course!
7 responses to “Guru Honorable Mention: Navigator Game by David Becker”
Speechless 😀
A lot of good ideas for futures developments.
Thanks !!!
Fantastic work, Dave! Thank you for showing.
This is great! I love the look and feel of it, excellent.
Glad you liked it, it was fun to build and helped me push the limits of my understanding of Articulate.
Hi David
Excellent course and thank you for sharing it with us.
Just a quick question, you say you found some code in the forums that launches you directly to a slide. I’ve been looking and so far haven’t found anything. Do you think you’ll be able to post the link?
Many thanks
PJ
Hi PJ – If you’d like to link from an Engage interaction to a specific slide within the same course (which is what Dave did in his Navigator example), you can use the method that Dave Moxon shares in this blog post. If you’d instead like to link to a specific slide from outside of your course, here’s how to do that: use the regular URL of the course (which ends with player.html), and add the following to the URL: ?slide= followed by the slide number.
Hi Janette
That’s great. Thanks for your help.
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