If you develop training material and depend on just a printed PDF to teach participants, you’re missing a major component: Online and interactive video. Learn how a new online course is developed for a community college training program. When Humber College decided to put its FrameMaker training courses online they needed course outlines, weekly session breakdowns, sample materials, and much more. While these are standard parts of any training course, the new course also had to be delivered online. Using the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2.5 we created all the course material, including online video and PDF. Learn what the workflow was, and see samples of the finished training material. Learn key utilities of FrameMaker, Captivate, Acrobat, and the rest of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite – and see how your courses can become interactive, dynamic, engaging and an online success!

1. Interactive Training Case Study Creating an online course

2. www.publishingsmarter.com 2 11:51 Bernard Aschwanden President of Publishing Smarter Worked in documentation and training fields since 1992 Consultant and trainer in CMS, XML, DITA, and publishing technologies Toronto STC Immediate Past President

3. www.publishingsmarter.com 3 3:16 Publishing Smarter Help clients improve content creation, management, and distribution workflows Provide content analysis, legacy file conversion, training, and support Goals reduce production costs improve document quality increase employee productivity

4. The official outline If you develop training material and depend on just a printed PDF to teach participants, you’re missing a major component: Online and interactive video. Learn how a new online course is developed for a community college training program. When Humber College decided to put its FrameMaker training courses online they needed course outlines, weekly session breakdowns, sample materials, and much more. While these are standard parts of any training course, the new course also had to be delivered online. Using the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2.5 we created all the course material, including online video and PDF. Learn what the workflow was, and see samples of the finished training material. Learn key utilities of FrameMaker, Captivate, Acrobat, and the rest of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite – and see how your courses can become interactive, dynamic, engaging and an online success! www.publishingsmarter.com 4 1:22

5. About this session The end product is a real course Ideas are here about development and delivery Not all slides or topics carry equal weight Some content is seen as common sense Use what you can, discard the rest If you have questions, ask! Slides are a reference, so we may go quickly If you are taking notes, note the slide number All content is also online www.publishingsmarter.com 5 11:51

6. What it ain’t A grammar coarse  All techie stuff Indepth discussions (mostly) Notes on things like Technical specs on the dev process A how to guide on any of the specific tools A full review of all course components www.publishingsmarter.com 6 11:51

7. Questions about you Who has taken classroom training Who has taken online training Who has developed print training Who has delivered training (classroom) Who has developed online training Who has delivered training (online) www.publishingsmarter.com 7 11:51

8. The first class… The first class was delivered years ago This course has developed from FrameMaker 4.x and later training (since 1992) First online delivery was over 10 years ago, in the late 1990’s First course for the Humber program was held on September 30th, 2010 www.publishingsmarter.com 8 11:52

9. The big picture overview What was expected, compared with deliver, and the reasons

10. Proposing the class In this case a course existed already Other schools also taught “in classroom” Numbers for this part of the program are low All other components are offered online The travel time (and that it’s on a Saturday) If during the week, it means time away from work The audience exists, we need to meet needs I suggested that I can teach this online www.publishingsmarter.com 10 11:52

11. Original expectations I thought that the course could be online I’d meet with people for a few hours/week During this time I would demo features Interaction limited to show and tell The time to put a course online = minimal www.publishingsmarter.com 11 11:52

12. The reality The course is delivered online I meet with students for about 1 hour/week I provide support (no demo), discuss ideas They don’t even see FM when I am online The time to put a course online = lots www.publishingsmarter.com 12 11:52

13. Why there is a disconnect It’s offered online, as planned Less time with me, due to course structure Software demo is via video; support fills gaps All interaction is talk, live demo, chat Initial dev work (lots) to cut down day-to-day www.publishingsmarter.com 13 11:52

14. Getting the course started How the course developed

15. Develop the outline Explained the current course outline Identified what can be done online Explained that this has been done before Linked to a webpage with the current outline www.publishingsmarter.com 15 3:17

16. Course outline (mine) www.publishingsmarter.com 16 3:17

17. Once the outline was approved Build Critical Path with details for online Use MS Word, very tedious, back and forth Content would be updated, manually put online Edits would have to be made to content Errors may be introduced, again, manual issues Once it existed online we could build to spec www.publishingsmarter.com 17 11:52

18. Putting Critical Path online Using Adobe Dreamweaver, content would be ported (manually) from Word Finished page looked good, had a lot of value to both the developer (me) and the course sponsor (the school) www.publishingsmarter.com 18 3:17

19. Critical Path webpage 1 www.publishingsmarter.com 19 11:52

20. Critical Path webpage 2 www.publishingsmarter.com 20 3:17

21. Critical Path webpage 3 www.publishingsmarter.com 21 11:52

22. Critical Path webpage 4 www.publishingsmarter.com 22 3:17

23. Convert print to online Create a PDF of the course materials All content managed via FrameMaker Template rich content, numbering, TOC, etc Participants can order directly from me, keep costs down, lets me control the source School reviewed/approved it immediately  www.publishingsmarter.com 23 3:18

24. Build the course Develop begins on the core content Not nearly as easy as I had hoped  I had the subject matter knowledge, but needed to build to the schools specs Online Video of the materials Evaluation process, quizzes, assignments, more Hand over the course outline, make edits www.publishingsmarter.com 24 11:52

25. Course outline (mine) www.publishingsmarter.com 25 11:52

26. Course outline (Humber) www.publishingsmarter.com 26 11:52

27. Content to the web The web developer used Adobe Dreamweaver for all content I provided source files as Word However, behind the scenes, I did a lot more www.publishingsmarter.com 27 11:52

28. Weekly breakdowns Not mental ones, but content ID what goes into each week Already done in the Critical Path So, for week 1, we had committed to: www.publishingsmarter.com 28 11:52

29. Week 1, Critical Path www.publishingsmarter.com 29 11:52

30. Building a week Again, content was provided in Word Reviewing what we had to provide was easy Developing it was not, because I wanted it to be as perfect as possible Doing things right takes time, but is worth it The detailed outline was the next part www.publishingsmarter.com 30 11:52

31. Week 1: Page 1 www.publishingsmarter.com 31 3:19

32. Week 1: Page 2 www.publishingsmarter.com 32 11:52

33. Week 1: Page 3 www.publishingsmarter.com 33 11:52

34. Delivering what is promised Next step is to ensure we have content Clear documentation (already in place, PDF) Clear videos (create for all promised content) Testing to evaluate learning Time to record the video, so off to Captivate www.publishingsmarter.com 34 11:53

35. Adobe Captivate For a full product plug, demo, details, visit the Adobe website Boils down to this: Adobe Captivate 5 software lets you go beyond screen capture to rapidly author rich eLearning content. Learn more.www.adobe.com/products/captivate/ www.publishingsmarter.com 35 11:53

36. To create overview videos I use a Virtual PC and create the same setup as students will have Using Captivate I capture video of the PC Videos get annotated and published to HTML www.publishingsmarter.com 36 11:55

37. To create testing videos I reuse what I created earlier, but only parts Using Captivate I edit the video The test then gets published, also to HTML Test can be set up with grading and more For our classroom, we test formally outside of the application www.publishingsmarter.com 37 11:55

38. Overview of the tools 38 11:55

39. Adobe FrameMaker We used it as the application we teach Also used it to create all print ready materials Course outline Course tests/process Course sample files Since the class is on FrameMaker, we use it in the class from start to end www.publishingsmarter.com 39 11:55

40. Adobe Acrobat We used it to distribute materials to students Along the way it was easy to take a PDF and create markup that has the right layout Using the comment features (enable in a file using Acrobat, but share via Adobe Reader) www.publishingsmarter.com 40 11:55

41. Adobe Captivate Most extensive tool used Every video and many exercises are based on content we demonstrate with Captivate Testing can be done using the software www.publishingsmarter.com 41 11:55

42. Adobe Photoshop Used to edit images that we captured In some screens we had info that we didn’t want to share This could be a specific folder path Could also be additional rollovers Also a great way to draw specific focus Also used to create/edit images for use in the FrameMaker file for PDF generation www.publishingsmarter.com 42 11:55

43. Net result of the course By using a suite of tools we can quickly create professional level materials The students can participate by learning on their schedule Class time is used to communicate ideas, but review of the tool is flexible Using the trial version makes the course accessible to students who may not be able to normally afford to attend www.publishingsmarter.com 43 11:55

44. Questions? Your turn Open forum, feel free to wander Ask about anything within or beyond scope www.publishingsmarter.com 44 2:00

45. Contact Information Web: www.publishingsmarter.com Email: bernard@publishingsmarter.com Phone: (905) 833 8448