Intro Psych at McMaster University

I remember my first psychology class in college. There was a thick textbook. The classroom was cold. The radiators rattled so much that it was impossible to doze off — a real shock to a Californian away at school in the Northeastern U.S.

Next year’s freshmen at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario will not have the same experience in their intro psych class that I did my freshman year at my college: At least part of their course experience will be online.

McMaster recently selected Articulate Presenter to power its forthcoming Introductory Psychology course, scheduled to launch in September 2007.

Chris McAllister is the media specialist for the program and has a detailed blog entry that describes some of the reasons the university selected Presenter over a certain competitor. Chris writes:

“We’ve chosen the platform: Articulate Presenter. It’s a fraction of the cost of eMacromedia Breeze and provides the same slick interface and simplicity of use that we’re looking for. The content can be layed out and developed using Power Point — a tool almost everyone knows, or can understand in about 20 minutes of being trained.”

It’s pretty cool that Chris has decided to chronicle his experience in launching this program, and I’m looking forward to reading about how it goes over the next year. But think about that for a minute — a university course powered by Articulate. That’s some exciting stuff.

Discovering how people are using our software is a great motivator for me and the rest of the team. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day business of running a support department or writing code, so I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on the impact our software is having in so many lives by helping people learn.