Hello,
I recently created my adobe account. I am interested in learning Captivate, starting with trial version.
Being a rookie I am unable of what features I should I start with to get hands-on. Hence I haven’t installed a trial version yet because I don’t want to lose out on crucial days (from those 30 days we get) while trying to find a traction.
What features are recommended to learn as the basics of Captivate? What are the concepts I need to learn as a beginner?
Thanks.
Hello,
I recently created my adobe account. I am interested in learning Captivate, starting with trial version. What features are recommended to learn as the basics of Captivate? What are the concepts I need to learn as a beginner?
Interesting!
Great post, I am in the same boat
Take if from Paul and Lieve. Good info. Just dive right in. I’m attempting to train myself as well before the 30 days end. I’m on day 17 and have learned a lot of great info.
Hi Darron,
With the trial version, I can create and save a simulation; however, upon saving I receive a prompt that says my trial subscription has ended (only 5 days after it began).
Any thoughts / advice?
That’s a tough question– what are your goals? What do you plan on developing?
If you are going to be building training for mobility, then creating a new responsive project may be a good place to start. But if your audience will receive their lessons on a desktop or laptop, then this might be wasted time.
Regardless, I think understanding the interface, how to build a basic project, and how to branch and build quizzes are good first steps. Captivate has a lot of advanced functionality which can be hard to access without an understanding of the fundamentals.
One of the best ways to learn is to give yourself little challenges. I have been using Adobe Captivate since 2005, and to be perfectly honest, the first ten years, I produced some of the most boring eLearning ever imaginable. I got good with Adobe Captivate when I started my own business, teaching others about Captivate. Every week I would get asked how to build this interaction or that interaction. I forced myself to logically work through these challenges and learn by making many mistakes but eventually building the interactions people were looking for. You can see my process over on my YouTube channel. Please subscribe, and if you turn on notifications, you will be alerted when I have a new tutorial on how to do these sorts of things. I come out with a new video tutorial each week. Even if you don’t follow my steps but instead use the topics as your own personal challenge, you will learn much about this incredible software.
You can find my channel here: https://youtube.com/paulwilsonlearning
You have already explored this community for some answers to your questions. They may be very different, depending on the author and her/his learning history with the creation of eLearning assets, and Captivate as eLearning authoring tool.
So much depends on your personal experiences and existing skills. That is my deep conviction: no one starts as a totally dummy when learning is concerned, and eLearning is aimed at learning in the first place. The technical side of using the tool is easier to answer. Once I wrote a blog, based on my experience as Captivate trainer, consultant, debugger to summarize which topics are crucial because they often cause problems for starting users of Captivate: timeline, quiz, themes. If you want to create responsive projects, you can add a 4th topic: using Fluid Boxes.
http://blog.lilybiri.com/challenges-for-starters
You will find many training schedules everywhere for canned training. They may fit as a more concrete start schedule, but make sure those crucial topics are at least ‘touched’ and not too superficial. Personally I just offer personalized training, even when it is a classroom training for a group of people, or online for a (smaller) group. Such a training is based on a take-in conversation about existing skills, and future goals.
Personal exploration (with much trial and error) and creating projects will allow acquiring some basic workflows. Watching passive video can help for step-by-step workflow,s but rarely for insight. Asking lot of questions on any social media, reading blogs, recreating projects which are demonstrated (there are a lot here and on blogs), exploring the Quick Start Projects which you get when installing the most recent trial version (11.5). Those are only some suggestions.
How did I learn Captivate? Not from videos, not from a manual, not from formal training. I just plunged in, and tried to solve problems posted on the Adobe forums for other users. Strange learning path, because I already had a long career as professor and training coach, and was using multiple Adobe applications before using Captivate. My goal: using eLearning assets both in blended learning and distant learning for my students (which I knew very well) and in combination with innovative methods like problem-based learning, project-based learning and flipped classes. I never looked back, never regretted the learning hours I put in Captivate.
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