PowerPoint Blog
Labels: articulate, interviews, powerpoint
Mark Schwartz (pictured to the left) is the executive vice president for sales and marketing at Articulate. In this role, he has worldwide sales responsibility for Articulate leading the direct sales and channel management teams as well as all product marketing activities. Prior to joining Articulate, Mark spent 20 years in sales and sales management roles with IBM and Dell.
In this discussion, Mark discusses the new Articulate Presenter ’09 product.
Geetesh: Articulate Presenter is already such a full featured program -- what did you add to version '09 to make it better?
Mark: We're really proud of the great job our engineering team did in improving upon Articulate Presenter. I've had an opportunity to demonstrate Presenter '09 at several trade shows already. The feedback that I've received has been extremely positive. The features that seem to receive the most acclaim include: the ability to add annotations to the course, preview publish options, improved image fidelity, branching support, notes formatting, mobile support, and PowerPoint 2007 ribbon interface and new feature support (such as SmartArt). We've summarized the many new features here:
Articulate Presenter '09 - New in '09
Geetesh: Tell us more about the support infrastructure in place for Articulate Presenter, and your other products.
Mark: According to our own and independent third party research, Articulate continues to receive very high marks in support. We recently won a Top 10 Best Web Support Site for the second year in a row. We offer free web based support, and we work hard at providing a comprehensive self service support site that solves most customer problems almost instantaneously. Should a customer need to open a case, we are able to respond to over 90% of our cases within an hour.
Our community forums - which is a critical element of our support offerings now has over 32,000 active members. We actively monitor and respond to customer threads and our customer base also does a great job responding to other customers in need. We truly have a very helpful and amazingly intelligent user community. I believe this is paramount to our success.
Our support site includes over 90 web based tutorials to get customers up to speed on our products. Should customers desire customized training from us, we offer web based and instructor led training sessions. This is available at: Articulate Support - Training
We offer an enhanced, fee-based support option -- the Platinum Membership Plan (PMP) which provides a free Software Developers Kit, chat support, and pre-paid, discounted version upgrades. Information on the Platinum Membership Plan is provided here.
Finally, we offer fee- based incident phone support that includes a web conference component where we can take over the user's computer if that would prove beneficial and if we are granted access.
See Also: Articulate Presenter ’09 -- The Indezine Review
Categories: articulate, interviews, powerpoint
Labels: articulate, interviews, powerpointMark Schwartz (pictured to the left) is the executive vice president for sales and marketing at Articulate. In this role, he has worldwide sales responsibility for Articulate leading the direct sales and channel management teams as well as all product marketing activities. Prior to joining Articulate, Mark spent 20 years in sales and sales management roles with IBM and Dell.
In this discussion, Mark discusses the new Articulate Quizmaker ’09 product.
Geetesh: How easy is it to create a quiz or survey in Quizmaker '09 -- does it involve any coding at all? And what's your favorite new feature in Quizmaker '09.
Mark: That's the power of Quizmaker '09. It allows for very simple quiz and survey authoring and requires no coding at all. If you do like to code in Flash, Quizmaker '09 easily supports inserting those Flash objects within the quiz. Quizmaker '09 provides for 2 authoring options - a form view and a slide view. The form view is set up a as template that allows for simple fill in the blank question creation. With it you get an effective, albeit generically designed, quiz. The slide view empowers the author to design a beautiful, engaging quiz. And it's simple to use. The slide view interface is similar to the PowerPoint 2007 animation, design, and pictures interface plus we add an audio and timeline editor for precise controls over audio and timings. It really allows for some amazing design options.
My favorite new feature is the slide view authoring capability. It provides total free form design but remains extremely simple to use. I can't wait to see some of the quizzes and surveys that our customers create. I also love the new conditional branching option used in conjunction with our new blank slide feature. The branching option allows Quizmaker '09 to direct the student to a specific slide or question based on a right or wrong answer. The new blank slide feature allows the author to create non-question slides, which provide for directed remediation when used with branching.
Geetesh: How does Quizmaker '09 integrate with Articulate Presenter and Articulate Online -- and are there any unconventional case studies on Quizmaker that you can share?
Mark: Customers who have Quizmaker '09 and Presenter '09 can integrate their quizzes within Presenter '09 courses. When integrated within a Presenter '09 course, you can set the number of quiz attempts and you can direct the student to a specific slide within the Presenter course based on a pass / fail result. All of these settings are easily controlled via a simple drop down selection.
Articulate Online is an Articulate hosted offering that allows customers to easily track and manage Articulate authored content. Quizmaker '09 authors can publish the quiz or survey directly to their Articulate Online portal via one click within Quizmaker '09. Once published, Articulate Online administrators can see full answer level detail for all students and quizzes.
I'm not aware of any unconventional case studies related to Quizmaker. It's really designed to allow for quick quiz and survey authoring, and that's how are customers are using it. With the blank slide feature and powerful design capabilities now provided with Quizmaker '09, perhaps we'll learn of some new unconventional uses for Quizmaker.
See Also: Articulate Quizmaker ’09 -- The Indezine Review
Categories: articulate, interviews, powerpoint
Labels: articulate, powerpoint
Articulate Presenter ’09 is the new version of Articulate Presenter, a product that plugs into Microsoft PowerPoint, and allows you to create interactive rich-media content -- in addition, Presenter allows you to insert quizzes created in Articulate Quizmaker '09, interactions created in Articulate Engage '09, FLV Flash videos converted in Articulate Video Encoder '09, Flash animations, narrations, and web objects to the presentation.
Read the review here...
Categories: articulate, powerpoint
Labels: articulate, powerpoint
Articulate Video Encoder '09 converts almost any popular video format into the FLV Flash video format. In addition, it also allows you to record video directly from your webcam to an FLV file. All videos can be tweaked with some essential edits. Finally, the converted FLV Flash video format files can be used as media elements in Articulate Presenter, Articulate Engage and Articulate Quizmaker -- or anywhere else.
Read the review here...
Categories: articulate, powerpoint
Labels: articulate, powerpointMark Schwartz (pictured to the left) is the executive vice president for sales and marketing at Articulate. In this role, he has worldwide sales responsibility for Articulate leading the direct sales and channel management teams as well as all product marketing activities. Prior to joining Articulate, Mark spent 20 years in sales and sales management roles with IBM and Dell.
In this discussion, Mark discusses the new Articulate Engage ’09 product.
Geetesh: Tell us more about the improvements in Engage ’09 – and what is your favorite new feature?
Mark: Engage ’09 has introduced some wonderful improvements over the previous version, which was driven by customer feature request submissions and the ingenuity of our amazing engineering teams.
I’m really excited about the new Community Interactions option. Often we receive requests to create more Engage interaction options. When we would ask 10 people which interactions they would like to see, we’d get 10 different suggestions. So we introduced a free Software Developers Kit (SDK) to empower Flash programmers to create their own Engage interactions. We expect to see many new interactions created by and shared within our community. Now there will be a virtually unlimited number of Engage interaction types.
I also think several other new features will be very well received including: interaction branching, increased color pallet and template customization, and the ability to publish directly to a Learning Management System (LMS) from Engage.
Geetesh: Beyond Engage’s synergies with Articulate Presenter and Articulate Online, I found it to be a great product to create quick electronic brochures, especially for users who are Flash-challenged. Can you share your thoughts on this concept?
Mark: Yes, we see many customers using Engage as a Flash authoring tool. While it was really initially designed to be primarily used as a way to enhance Articulate Presenter courses, we realized that many customers were actually creating entire courses using Engage. That is why we introduced the ability to publish Engage interactions directly to Articulate Online and to LMS’s to enable tracking of these Engage only courses.
See Also: Articulate Engage ’09 -- The Indezine Review
Categories: articulate, powerpoint
Labels: articulate, powerpoint
Articulate Quizmaker is a simple application that lets you create quizzes and surveys without any programming knowledge -- all you need to do is walk through some simple wizards -- and let Quizmaker output your quizzes as rich media Flash files. These Flash outputs can be hosted online, used in presentations, or combined with Articulate's other products.
Quizmaker comprises 20 question types, including drag-and-drop and hotspot styles. You can add a number of rich media objects, add design themes, include a wide range of effects for your images and text without tedious manual formatting, and also implement a customizable player.
Read the review here...
Categories: articulate, powerpoint
Labels: articulate, powerpoint
Explaining a concept, a process, or even showing a series of pictures can sometimes become so complicated -- more because of what sort of computer program you do the explaining in! When you run across a scenario like that, you will find that Engage, a quick and easy-to-use program that lets you create "interactions" is just what you want!
What I like about Engage is that it does not try to do everything -- it takes a simple approach of being a one-trick pony, and does that exceedingly well. The folks at Articulate, the company that creates Engage like to call anything you create within Enagage an "interaction" -- think of these interactions as small brochure-like Flash movies with rich-media interactivity that can be embedded within presentations, e-learning content, and web sites.
Read the review here...
Categories: articulate, powerpoint
Labels: articulate, interviews, medicine, online_presentations, powerpoint, training 
Greg Friese, MS, NREMT-P is president of Emergency Preparedness Systems LLC and a paramedic, educator, author, and outdoor enthusiast. To learn more and to receive rapid e-learning design and production tips subscribe to the EPS blog at their site.
Geetesh: Tell us more about yourself, Emergency Preparedness Systems LLC, and the training programs you create.
Greg: I am the founder and president of Emergency Preparedness Systems LLC. EPS does four things:
Our training programs for EMTs and paramedics, generally 25-30 minutes long, are used for continuing or refresher education. Since emergency responders work rotating shifts, it is very difficult for all employees to be in the training room together. Online lessons allow asynchronous delivery of the exact same content across multiple shifts and multiple stations. If users are called out for an emergency they can resume the training program when they return. Each lesson is approved by the Continuing Education Coordinating Board for EMS (CECBEMS) so students know that it will be accepted for local, state, or national recertification requirements. Most EPS content is distributed through CentreLearn.com and RapidCE.com.
Geetesh: Why do you use PowerPoint as the starting point for the creation of these programs? And what else do you use to enhance and distribute these programs.
Greg: We use PowerPoint for several reasons. First of all it is an excellent tool for us to storyboard a lesson. During initial production, each slide is given a working title and the script for the audio narration is written in the notes view. As production and editing progresses, notes for images, objects, and animations are added to the notes view. Once the script is finalized, slide production begins which includes a descriptive slide title and sub-title, insertion of images and objects, and animation formatting.
The final step is to convert the PowerPoint slides to Flash using Articulate Presenter. The audio is inserted and synchronized with the PowerPoint slide animations. The end user watches a narrated Flash movie inside the Articulate Presenter player. They may not even be aware that they are watching a movie that was created with PowerPoint.
We also use another Articulate product called Engage to create and insert custom Flash learning objects into the PowerPoint. The Articulate Engage Interactions publish inside the Articulate Presenter movie.
Categories: articulate, medicine, online_presentations, powerpoint, training
Labels: articulate, elearning, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint
Gabe Anderson (pictured to the left) takes care of support and community initiatives at Articulate, a provider of rich media products used for e-learning.
In this conversation, Gabe discusses Articulate Online, and how this service integrates with Articulate's other products.
Geetesh: Tell us more about Articulate Online, and how it is helping people deliver content.
Gabe: Articulate Online allows you to effectively track e-learning activity without the usual cost and hassle. You can publish directly to your Articulate Online account with a single click from either Articulate Presenter or Articulate Quizmaker. All content is hosted on and delivered from the Articulate Online server, so you can easily get your content to your target users with just a link or via a personalized user portal.
Then you can run a number of detailed reports to see how your users are interacting with your content -- who's viewing your presentations and how your users are scoring on your quizzes and answering your survey questions.
And with plans starting at just $199/month, Articulate Online is easier to use and more affordable than complex and expensive corporate learning management systems that are difficult to use and have more features than you need.
You can learn more about Articulate Online here...
There's a 3-minute overview here...
Finally, there's an in-depth, 19-minute overview of Articulate Online here...
Geetesh: How does Articulate Online integrate with other Articulate offerings such as Presenter and Quizmaker.
Gabe: Articulate Online is the only fully integrated hosting, tracking, and reporting platform available that allows direct, one-click publishing from either Articulate Presenter or Quizmaker. You can even embed Articulate Engage interactions, 3rd-party Flash movies, Web Objects, and more directly in your Presenter content before you publish to Articulate Online.
There's no more worrying about FTP applications, LMS integration, or file management. Just click and publish to Articulate Online, and your content is ready to be shared publicly or with your private users.
A number of tutorials, including how to publish from Presenter and Quizmaker, are available here...
Categories: articulate, elearning, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: articulate, online_presentations
Articulate announced Articulate Online, a new user-friendly hosted service that allows you to track how employees, customers and prospects interact with your e-learning courses, assessments and presentations.
This service also integrates seamlessly with Articulate's other offerings: Articulate Presenter and Articulate Engage, thus allowing easy publish and distribution options.
More info on the Articulate site...
Categories: articulate, online_presentations
Labels: articulate, powerpoint
Articulate, a provider of rapid e-learning authoring tools, has announced the winners of its 2007 Articulate Guru Awards.
The competition was introduced to honor excellence in content creation using Articulate software.
The top prize Gold medal was awarded to Prometheus Training Corporation for their "Office Ergonomics" course. This entry was notable in its clean design and effective integration of Articulate Presenter, Quizmaker, and Engage.
More info on the Articulate site...
Categories: articulate, powerpoint
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