Captivate, is an amazing program that could change how e-learning is developed and delivered in the 21st Century. The software presents great opportunities for poor nations that are looking to reshape curriculum design and instruction.
My story learning and using Adobe Captivate in a developing country.
Here is my story of learning adobe captivate from scratch in a country where e-learning is underdeveloped and the education system struggles to transition from a colonial curriculum to a contemporary social setting.
My name is Joel Odota from Uganda in eastern Africa and I first used Captivate in November 2020, to deliver a project that aimed at strengthening the capacity of social organizations in Uganda.
Although I had never heard of or used the authoring tool before, I was able to emerge as one of Uganda’s best e-learning developers, building at least four e-learning modules.
Let me tell you a little bit about Uganda:
- Land-locked country and the former British colony of about 45 million people
- A populous country with the world’s youngest population, with half of its population under the age of 14 years.
- Uganda’s literacy rate currently stands at 76.53% (2018 estimate)
- Each year, 1 million Ugandans enter the job market (World Bank, 2020)
- There are just about 80,000 jobs in the market each year.
- Uganda’s GDP is about $37 billion (2021)
- The average cost of education in Uganda is about $650 per year
- The income per capita in the country is $794 (2019 estimate)
The e-learning Space in Uganda
Virtual learning is not widely spread and the country does not have an e-learning policy to guide the execution of e-learning. However, in 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak was at its peak, the Mistry of Education and Sports (MoES) innovated ways for Uganda’s learners to continue learning from home. It should be noted that Uganda closed its schools for the longest period in during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Uganda’s learners were out of school for at least 83 weeks.
But what the MoES calls e-learning is actually a web-based platform that is actually not fully authored e-learning and is less interactive. Besides having a web-based learning platform on the government’s website, the ministry introduced SMS and USSD-based learning avenues.
Since the reopening of schools a few months back, the term “e-learning” is slowly disappearing from the population. It seems to me that most Ugandans prefer traditional learning, where students and teachers interact physically and the government is slow at making e-learning go the mainstream. I am definitely not saying regular learning is a bad idea, but e-learning presents several benefits to us.
How Could Adobe Captivate Help a Country Like Uganda?
Uganda, just like any other developing country could benefit immensely from the opportunities that come along with virtual learning.
While a number of universities are aware of learning management systems (LMS) like Moodle, they hardly create engaging e-learning for their students. Uganda Christian University, for instance, uses Moodle to collect assignments just as emails would do, and very limited use of quizzes.
Effective use of authoring tools like Captivate could lead to the creation of engaging e-learning projects for Ugandan learners and more broadly, the growth of education in Uganda. Specifically, widespread use of Adobe Captivate and LMS would:
- Reduce the cost of education
- Improve access to education services for the underserved
- More convenience for both teachers and learners
- Improvement of Uganda’s name in the field of e-learning on the African continent
My journey: what worked and what didn’t
I started learning to captivate from scratch, with support from my senior at work. Little did I know that I was going to become one of Uganda’s very first Adobe Captivate users trained on the job.
What made me successful:
- I spent so much time playing with the program’s features. I definitely made lots of mistakes, that later turned out to be my strength.
- YouTube was my greatest teacher. While my senior gave me assignments to do and send him to review, he hardly told me “How” to do them, but instead gave me links to YouTube videos. I would like to appreciate the work of Paul Wilson and his “Captivate Teacher” channel which has lots of materials available on both free and premium bases.
- Patience paid. We all know Captivate is a very slow program due to its many features and could sometimes take several minutes to open. I didn’t run out of patience and didn’t mind opening the program many times a year.
- Connected with the right people. There are tons of groups online for us to connect to other Adobe Captivate users including the Adobe E-learning community, where users share their experiences using the program.
What challenged me;
- The program is quite heavy and needs high computer specifications, which can be found here. Using computers with low specifications often led to things hanging up.
- There are not many users of Captivate in Uganda, so an IT guy downtown may not have any idea about the program in case you ran into a problem. The program is not as widely used as the other Adobe Products.
- Unlike the other Adobe Products, Captivate’s features are quite many, and learning and perfectly using everything could take a bit of time and practice.
All in all, Captivate, is an amazing program that could change how e-learning is developed and delivered in the 21st Century. The software presents great opportunities for poor nations that are looking to reshape curriculum design and instruction.
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