As an instructional designer and content developer I make a habit of trying to stay up to date on the tools available for eLearning development. I regularly will download trail versions of software when new versions come out and will spend time evaluating them. Usually I will spend a few hours over a few days going through the software, following YouTube tutorials learning the basics (enough to keep the title on my resume).

Last month, I applied for an instructional designer position and like most instructional design postings now days, it listed Captivate, Articulate, and Lectora under skills they were looking for. Over the years I have used each of these packages, but at my current job we are using none of them, so I went to the free trials. I had brushed up on Lectora Inspire I few months ago, so I downloaded Articulate Storyline 2 and Captivate 2017. I installed Captivate first because I had used it a lot in the past and I still use Adobe Creative Suite. I was really impressed with the updates to Captivate, but what really got me hooked was the Adobe eLearning Community.

I installed Captivate 2017 and started going through the software identifying the features I remembered and poking around at the new ones. I went to YouTube and found the Paul Wilson videos and subscribed to his channel. Paul’s videos mentioned the Adobe eLearning Community Web site, so since I was looking for information on Captivate 2017 I came to the Adobe eLearning Community site and signed up. As an educator, I have visited more than my share of online learning communities, where people congregate, share, and assist each other, but it’s not too often a company provides such valuable incentives to participate like Adobe is doing on the Adobe eLearning Community.

I stopped using Captivate because I couldn’t afford it to purchase it myself, and the school where I work didn’t have the budget for it. Now I had the opportunity to earn a license for Captivate, and all I had to do is learn the software and communicate with other users in the same field of work, what a no brainer! Unlike in the past when I evaluated software, I kept Captivate installed on my computer and started using it, and regularly visiting the eLearning Community, and shortly after my 30 day trial was up, I earned 3 months, and I am sure before three months is up I can earn another 3 months, but hopefully a year. Now I am thinking about earning an invite to a conference.