Video can be a powerful tool in training, but many of the quality video tools are expensive and difficult to master. The average developer just does not have the budget, the skills, or (most importantly) the time to become proficient in a high-end video editing tool.

In this session, you’ll explore how to use Articulate’s Replay 360 to build high-quality yet inexpensive training videos with ease. The newest version of Replay has been enhanced to include many of the editing features normally reserved for the more expensive editors (cut, delete, split, silence, and mix). You’ll explore how Replay 360 can be used to record your screen, create picture-in-picture videos, edit existing video clips, enhance the content with transitions and lower thirds, and publish videos to Articulate Review or locally as an MP4 to insert into your course development software.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use Replay to record screen movements
• How to add picture-in-picture presenter video
• How to enhance the video output with transitions and lower thirds
• How to publish the videos in MP4 format for use in a learning module

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate Replay 360 and Articulate Review.

Technology required:
Laptop running Windows and Replay 360.

The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) requires that employers provide “reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants and employees.” But many instructional designers worry that accessible content will be less interactive and thus less effective. Others want to do more but don’t know where to begin. In the end, many often just create a printable text version of the content and call it good enough. You can and should do better than that for your learners.

In this session, you’ll learn how one of the tools you may already use, Adobe Captivate, can allow you to create engaging and interactive modules that also meet ADA standards and/or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). You’ll find out more about different levels of content accessibility and see how to use the Captivate accessibility tools to achieve them. You’ll also look at real examples that show how to adapt custom interactions, the ways you can test a module for accessibility, and additional resources that are available to help you make your content more accessible.

In this session, you will learn:

• Best practices for creating accessible content in Adobe Captivate
• How to build slides and interactions that are accessible to users with visual, hearing, and motor impairments
• How to identify device limitations or issues that may affect the accessibility of your project
• What options are available for converting non-accessible interactions to accessible ones
• What other resources are available for building and testing accessible content

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers. Attendees should have a working knowledge of Captivate 8 or above.

Technology discussed in this session:
Adobe Captivate.

Participant technology requirements:
Laptop running Adobe Captivate 8 or above.

Time is money, and so are happy clients! Come spend some time with the Articulate team and learn how you can speed up your workflow, help your budget, and increase your productivity with the tools in Articulate 360.

Workplaces are awash in email traffic, competing demands, and hard-to-maintain courseware, while businesses try to operate more responsively to the needs of both the marketplace and its stakeholders. To better work within this complexity and remain relevant to the business, L&D needs to rethink the methods it uses to support learners. While expensive, enterprise-weight solutions exist for this dilemma, there is a simpler approach you can consider that has shallower learning curves, stronger impact, and greater extensibility—Slack.

In this session, you’ll learn how just how easy it is to use Slack to build a learning and collaboration ecosystem. This social-collaborative tool enables real-time communication and is particularly positioned for success in L&D. You’ll discover how its capabilities extend learning from stand-alone offerings into micro-communications and context-related expert sourcing. You’ll also explore case studies on how Slack can be combined with the analytics functions available in the tool itself as well as through other services such as Google Analytics and Learning Locker for xAPI. This session will give you the keys to designing and managing your learning ecosystem in the workplace for improved performance or in higher education settings to support local or distributed student populations.

In this session, you will learn:

• The basics of the Slack platform
• The design fundamentals and practices needed to use Slack to support learning
• What measurement and analytics tools can help you learn more about your Slack ecosystem and how it functions
• What management/facilitation fundamentals you’ll need to grow and foster your learning ecosystem

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Slack.

3-D virtual simulations give you the opportunity to create an immersive learning environment with interactive and engaging experiences. Articulate Storyline has emerged in recent years as a popular eLearning authoring tool, but it lacks built-in tools or methods to create 3-D virtual simulations.

This session will explore creative approaches and techniques to incorporating “pseudo” 3-D virtual simulations, as well as actual 3-D virtual simulations, within Articulate Storyline. You will learn about the benefits and drawbacks of Storyline for 3-D simulations, and how to decide upon and differentiate between “pseudo” and actual simulations.

In this session, you will learn:

• General information about 3-D virtual simulations
• About the pros and cons of using Articulate Storyline for 3-D virtual simulations
• How to incorporate “pseudo” and actual 3-D virtual simulations within Articulate Storyline

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate Storyline, Unity, BabylonJS, and WebGL.

Do you have a large number of similar courses to develop in a short amount of time? Is it painful for you to build one-off custom courses for material that just changes slightly? Would you like to build an efficient course development template so that all of your courses have the same look and feel, can be rapidly produced, and still can be customized? JavaScript with Storyline is the answer!

In this session, you will learn how to make JavaScript calls from Storyline and how to manipulate various screen elements (button labels, characters, page titles) from variables within a JavaScript file. You’ll first look at a sample JavaScript file and learn how to build it using simple text editing tools. You’ll then explore an advanced way to generate the same file using an HTML form page and SQL database. You can apply these techniques to other course development tools.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to call JavaScript from Storyline
• How to manipulate internal Storyline variables from outside of Storyline
• How to write a simple JavaScript file
• About the power of JavaScript to rapidly make changes to a Storyline project

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers. This session will use Storyline for all demonstrations; however, the techniques discussed can be used with any course development tool that supports JavaScript. A basic understanding of variables and triggers in Storyline would be helpful.

Technology discussed in this session:
JavaScript, Articulate Storyline, Microsoft Notepad, Adobe Dreamweaver, and SQL.

PowerPoint is often the basis for much of the training material you use and the eLearning and mLearning content you create, and yet it’s text-heavy, dull, and boring. This is not effective; it results in disengaged students and click-through eLearning.

In this session, see how you can revolutionize your presentations and other training material using visuals, diagrams, and animated sequences, with some helpful how-to guides and a collection of awesome PowerPoint tricks. You will see examples of the approaches in real-life training materials across a range of different topics and formats. Get inspiration to apply these ideas to your next training course or presentation.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to delight your audiences with compelling visual slides
• How to manipulate photos within PowerPoint (no need for Photoshop) so that they convey meaning
• How to use animation to tell your story effectively
• How to create, edit, format, and animate live graphs and charts quickly and easily

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Microsoft PowerPoint (2007 and later).

With the frequent releases of eLearning products, it can be hard to keep up with all the new features introduced with every version. But if you don’t look into these updates, you could miss great new features that can make your course creation easier or even allow you to do brand-new things with the tool.

In this session, you’ll learn about the most useful new features in Adobe Captivate 9 that can help you easily create a wide range of attractive and instructionally sound eLearning. You’ll see a demonstration of how Captivate 9 can help you go seamlessly from storyboarding to responsive eLearning (and to everything in between). You’ll also learn how to use multi-state objects, free assets, effects, knowledge check questions, and more in the newest version of this eLearning development tool.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create storyboards using Adobe Captivate Draft
• How to create responsive eLearning courses
• How to work with multi-state objects and effects
• How to download and use the free assets for Captivate

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers. Attendees should have a basic knowledge of Captivate.

Technology discussed in this session:
Adobe Captivate 9.

Participant technology requirements:
Laptop running Adobe Captivate 9.

Many people in L&D work with technology that does their coding for them, enabling them to create something exciting without really understanding the code behind it. But if you don’t know how something works, then you can’t possibly control it, mold it, or make it better. The thing decides how it works, and you must simply abide. That’s why, even if you have no intention of making coding your full-time job, it can still be handy to have a basic understanding of how it works and when just a small amount of coding can make what you create even better.

In this session, you’ll explore what goes on under the hood of your courses and how your content actually works. Through looking at simple examples and learning a few basics of JavaScript and HTML, you’ll discover how easy it is to get started with coding and how even just a few basic skills can help you tweak and reshape your digital content in meaningful ways. By the end of this session, you’ll have a better understanding of what your pages are doing and how to make sure your content works for you.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why knowing what your code looks like can help you in the long run
• Why knowing how your content works can make you a better designer
• That JavaScript is not scary!
• How to write simple HTML and JavaScript
• About resources that can help you continue learning the basics of web programming

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers.

Technology discussed in this session:
HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and text editors.

Creating effective learning experiences is not a job for a novice, although many novices are thrown into the role of instructional designer or developer. If beginners turn to the field’s expansive literature, which ranges from cookbook-style guides and blogs to scientific research, they are easily overwhelmed and typically turn to overly simplistic approaches. But even experienced professionals can come to feel they’re never able to do the job that should be done.

This session will explore the objective of simplifying the task of creating effective instructional experiences, without oversimplifying it. You will come away from this session with successful strategies that are responsive to research and best practices, but that simplify the overall task while addressing the fundamentals needed for highly effective instruction.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to continuously evaluate designs as they come together
• To avoid excessive content presentation as a means to achieve greater content mastery
• To challenge awareness goals
• To design backward (it’s faster, easier, and better)

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and managers.

Your goal is to provide learners with a terrific learning experience on whatever device they might be using. But spending countless hours tweaking content for various screens when there’s a fast-approaching deadline doesn’t seem like a great solution. Help is on the way! In this session you’ll find out how mobile eLearning development just got easy with the hot new apps in Articulate 360.

Let’s face it: we all need a little help sometimes. Whether you’re a manager, an instructional designer, a developer, a programmer, or some combination—no matter what your role is, sooner or later you need to choose an authoring tool to develop eLearning content. But how to decide? In this topic, we’ll discuss various criteria and decision points to help you figure out which authoring tool is the best fit for you. At the end of the presentation, attendees will be provided with their own essential checklist to help them choose.

While instructional design and effective learning approaches are paramount in eLearning, aesthetics can’t be ignored either. That’s because the page layouts and overall design of your projects influence both your client’s feelings about the quality of your work and your audience’s confidence in the course. But most instructional designers and developers aren’t trained graphic designers, leaving them at a disadvantage when it comes to building professional, modern eLearning projects.

This session will help you break down what goes into great eLearning design and layout, and then show you how to easily use those components in the rapid development tools you’re already using. You’ll start by examining professional page layouts and learning how to identify the different design components and effects that make them effective. You’ll also take a close look at simple tips for creating basic graphics, and examine how object movement and transitions can assist your design. You’ll then take these techniques and find out how specifically to apply them in rapid development tools to build graphic elements, add movement, and increase the visual appeal of the content you create.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why it’s important to add visual appeal and polish to bland-looking eLearning
• How to identify and incorporate modern design techniques in your eLearning courses
• How to create graphics using rapid development tools and PowerPoint
• How to design and build pages with thoughtful movement and transitions using rapid development tools

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers. Attendees with basic experience in rapid development tools and/or PowerPoint will get the most out of the session.

Technology discussed in this session:
Modern design themes on the web; rapid development tools (primarily Trivantis Lectora and Adobe Captivate); and Microsoft PowerPoint drawing tools.

L&D practitioners have always struggled with extending the learning experience to help make workplace learning less of a one-time event and more of a long-term process. Social tools are one way to shift this approach, offering great opportunities for increasing our reach before, during, and after formal training. But sometimes when using social tools in the same ways we use them in our personal lives, we miss opportunities to leverage them differently to support extended learning and engagement with our audience. There's so much more that these tools have to offer than just asking people to join discussion groups!

In this session, you'll look beyond traditional approaches and instead dive deep into innovative and surprising ways that familiar social tools like Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat can be integrated into your own work. You’ll rethink your approach to proprietary/internal social tools as well. As you'll see from real workplace examples, these tools can span a wide range of uses, including supporting traditional training, making rules and processes clearer, supporting organizational initiatives like onboarding and branding, and even just helping learners engage with you and with each other. You’ll then put this knowledge to work right in the session by using one of these tools to start building your own new social solution.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify which tools are best suited to your learners, organization, and instructional goals
• How to better understand tools at their root so you can leverage them in more useful ways
• Ideas for partnering with learners to generate more user-generated content
• Ideas for overcoming resistance and common objections
• Hands-on tips for using these tools to create a solution for your workplace challenges

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers and developers

Technology discussed in this session:
Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and proprietary/internal social tools.

Technology required:
Computer or mobile device you can access social networks on.

eLearning authoring tools like Articulate Storyline 2 and Presenter are powerful applications to enrich eLearning experiences. Yet most companies suffer from “PowerPoint Conversion Syndrome.” Therefore, learning experiences continue to be “death sentences” of boredom because courses are just PowerPoint decks full of text and bullets, driving engagement way down.

In this session, you will learn design tips and strategies used by elite professionals in the craft of eLearning with Storyline 2 and Presenter. Whether you are a trainer or instructional designer (or even none of the above), looking for fresh ideas on how to leverage animated characters in your eLearning courses, or simply want to see what these applications can do, this session is the one for you.

In this session, you will learn:

• How Storyline2 character states are used in animation
• How to identify pros and cons of illustrated vs. photographic characters
• How to personalize eLearning with character states and variables
• How to access Articulate Presenter’s built-in illustrated and photographic characters, and how to import stock and other imagery to liven up text slides
• How to apply innovative techniques using characters and scenarios to make assessments more interactive and engaging

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate Storyline 2 and Articulate Presenter.

Want to create highly effective and engaging eLearning content, but have a limited budget? A wide variety of high-end digital learning design tools have features that promise to produce visually stimulating experiences, but they come complete with an equally high price tag.

In this session, you will learn the tips and tricks you’ll need to create powerful digital learning solutions on a dime. You will learn methods of designing and developing multi-device-compatible solutions including DIY videos, interactive activities, applied learning exercises, and gamification—all guaranteed to drive business results without driving up your cost.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use existing resources to create videos, graphics, and audio
• How to utilize an internal FTP or intranet to structure digital learning tools
• How to create graphics and animations in PowerPoint that you can synchronize with audio or embed within a video
• How to create and track applied learning exercises with free survey software
• How to use a free video capture tool to incorporate YouTube videos into your learning content
• How to create HTML5-compliant content compatible with multiple devices and operating systems

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers. Attendees should be proficient in PowerPoint and have a basic understanding of the following: learning management systems (LMSs); SCORM files; SCORM development software; and image, video, and file formats (like PNG, MP4, MP3).

Technology discussed in this session:
Microsoft PowerPoint, Windows Movie Maker, GoAnimate, HTML5, YouTube, and eBooks.

Participant technology requirements:
Laptop running PowerPoint and Movie Maker.

Take an in-depth look at the tools, designs, and technologies you should focus on in learning today, and at what’s just around the corner. This session will dissect technologies that will enhance learning and show you how to integrate them into your solutions. What can you learn from the buzz and new tools appearing in the consumer and corporate environments, and how can you take advantage of them to help your users learn? This fun session will give you dozens of ideas and reboot your brain for fresh perspectives on how to enhance your learning today.

As technology changes day-to-day life, it is fascinating to imagine what the future will bring. For L&D professionals, however, it’s very hard to keep up the pace. What technology will be trending and will change the way people live and learn, and what technology will be nothing but hype? Has augmented reality really disrupted learning? And how about virtual reality and wearable tech?

This session will discuss some of the latest technologies by exploring some really cool free or inexpensive tools and apps that can be used as learning amplifiers. Those tools and apps could change the way L&D supports learning and can have an impact on your employees. After this session, you will be on top of the latest trends and technologies, and you’ll see the benefits of adopting those tools as a verified learning partner.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the latest tech trends for learning
• About 10 free or inexpensive tools
• About the benefits of technology for performance
• How to embrace technology as a learning partner

Audience:
Novice to intermediate developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Wearable tech, augmented reality, virtual reality, and iBeacons.

Animation and movement can be key features that help the learner pay attention to what’s important on the screen. When done well, motion and animation can be effective tools to leverage; but when done poorly, they are a waste of development time and a distraction to the learner.

In this session, you’ll tap into the latest techniques in Articulate Storyline for creating movement that matters, building a foundation for simple movement up to more extravagant gaming. You’ll explore some of the lesser-known uses for transitions and animations, including using the “push transition” effectively and designing animations within states. This session will also introduce two new Storyline 360 animation features: “orient shape to path” and “object intersection” triggers.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to build a variety of animations, transitions, and motion paths
• How to use triggers to control motions
• How to use motion to trigger other events in Storyline
• About some of the lesser-known and creative animation and motion features

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate Storyline 360.

Technology required:
Laptop running Articulate Storyline 360.

Animation can enhance learner engagement, but who has the time to learn to animate? Storyline 2 has great illustrated characters with many poses and expressions, yet when you need your character to do something not in its lineup, what are you to do?

In this session, you will learn how to use Storyline 2 illustrated characters and Microsoft PowerPoint to edit the characters to create evocative animatic-type animations. You will learn how, when used in combination with an effective story, you can enhance your learners’ engagement by illustrating your content with more targeted, styled characters and smoother animation. To enhance the experience of this session, create a five-minute story or script that introduces two characters and includes some dialogue.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to export illustrated characters from Storyline 2
• How to import characters into PowerPoint
• How to edit the characters’ features, expressions, poses, hair, and clothing
• How to import the characters back into Storyline or another development tool
• How to create a short animatic illustration

Audience:
Intermediate designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate Storyline 2 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.

Participant technology requirements:
A laptop running Storyline 2 and PowerPoint 2010 or later.

How many times have you had to redo a project because you thought you understood the challenge, goals, or requirements but the final product didn’t work as expected or fully solve the issue? As we start to build more complex interactions and applications, we need to improve our process to allow us to test a concept, measure its results, and iterate over and over until it meets the needs of our audience. Thankfully, software development already has a fantastic process for doing this that we can borrow from that field: prototyping.

Whether you’re creating a new course, designing an activity, planning an app, or creating your next ecosystem, you can noticibly improve your development using the latest strategies in prototyping your ideas. In this session you’ll explore the techniques and processes you’ll need to begin prototyping as soon as you get back to your desk. You’ll learn how to communicate concepts beginning with low-fidelity prototypes, gather user feedback, and translate all that into high-fidelity prototypes before you start development. You’ll also find out about dozens of prototyping tools and resources that will help you get started. By the end of this session, you’ll know how to adopt and utilize these prototyping concepts in your very next project.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to get started with applying prototyping to your process
• Techniques for paper-, web-, and app-based prototyping
• What new web-based apps can help you to accelerate the process
• How to collect feedback, review it, and prioritize your next steps
• What mobile-based apps and tools can help you with quick prototyping

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
PowerPoint/Keynote for wireframing a concept, Marvel Web and Mobile App for prototyping, CRAFT Plug-in for content generation, and Proto.io for advanced interactions.

Responsive eLearning design is becoming less of a nice-to-have feature and more of an absolute must for many organizations. As a result, the most popular authoring tools, like Captivate, Storyline, and Lectora, have been adding more features for integrating responsive design, while some newer tools have been designed right from the start to accommodate the needs of this design concept. That said, these tools each take a different approach to making content responsive, so you’ll want to make sure you’re using the right one for your needs.

In this session, you’ll take a closer look at the similarities and differences in the ways that commonly used eLearning tools approach responsive design. You’ll see the finished output and the under-the-hood mechanics, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each option. You’ll also investigate how these tools compare to other platforms that are designed more specifically for responsive courses, such as Gomo, Rise, and Adapt.

In this session, you will learn:

• Different approaches to responsive design
• The relative strengths and weaknesses of each approach
• How popular eLearning tools accommodate responsive design
• What criteria will help you decide which approach is best for you

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Captivate, Storyline, Lectora, Gomo, Rise, and Adapt.

Rapid eLearning development tools are incredibly helpful, but they may leave you scratching your head, wondering “How am I going to do that?” You know there has to be a way to make the idea you have in your head work in this tool, but you’re just not quite sure how. That’s when it’s time to shift your creativity into high gear and find a crafty solution for things that aren’t default processes.

In this session, you’ll discover seven successful hacks that will not only save you production time but also help you rethink what’s possible for your eLearning production. These hacks will focus on addressing common challenges that eLearning producers face, whether those issues lie in the tool being used or the approach you’re taking. From interactions to audio to images, you’ll find new ways to use the tools you already know.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to work around for time interactions
• About elegant solutions for quick-loading video
• How to build and reuse themes
• How to record, edit, and sync audio
• How to use shortcuts
• How to roundtrip images
• How to communicate with team members

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Adobe Captivate, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Media Encoder, and Adobe Audition.