Exciting!

I'm so excited! I came up with a unifying "theme" for these tutorials: Info To Go. I wanted something that could go on each initial screen that would tie them together. I think that Info To Go sums up what these are all about: research help that's available when students need it. This will go on the first slide of every tutorial, along with the library logo, and a module title.

This gives an indication of what that initial screen will look like. As you may have noticed, I've altered the order I'll be creating tutorials in once again. I'm going to approach them like a research project and go through and create them in a logical sequence. Therefore, it makes sense that the general introduction to the research process (selecting your keywords, gaining a working knowledge of your topic with reference books, narrowing down, using books, periodicals, and the internet) should come first. A logical second tutorial, then, will be the one on Gale Virtual Reference Library, followed by the Boolean searching one third. I'm much happier with this sequence and approach.

I'm now working through the lesson on creating simulations, which have greater interactivity, rather than mere demonstrations. Suddenly, things are starting to fall into place!

Lesson learned

I can't believe how much more I know and how much more comfortable I am with Captivate after accomplishing just a handful of lessons. While it's possible to cobble something together, I truly believe the finished products will be much more sophisticated and user-friendly after having taken the time to do my research first and actually *learn* about the software rather than just jumping in willy nilly. This is a difficult thing for me to admit, because I'm impatient and typically want to just get on with things, hence my previous approach and unsatisfactory results.

I am thrilled to actually be *learning* the software before I create my first official tutorial. Lesson learned.

Books!

I was thrilled to find my new Adobe Captivate books waiting for me when we got back home this week. I am especially pleased with Essentials of Adobe Captivate 3, which is, in a sense, a student workbook. While we were travelling, I was trying to struggle through creating slides for the first tutorial but was not at all happy with the results. I have since scrapped that initial project and am working through the first, basic lessons in this book first. This is allowing me to get a much better feel for how Captivate works, all it's possibilities, and how to best lay out a project *before* one starts to attempt to record it.

The downside to this is that I had expected to have a completed project done by this time, ready for testing. Although I had completed the project, it was not satisfactory and I was in no way satisfied with it. Since the program itself isn't difficult to operate, I have high hopes that once I have this additional "learning curve" out of the way (I hadn't thought to see if there was anyway to set preferences and I had obviously recorded things at the wrong screen resolution and recording area, which then caused problems in trying to view things.) Obviously, it's best to begin at the beginning and actually get some education on the program before jumping in in order to get the best results, which is what I want.

It's the frustration I was feeling in trying to get things to turn out the way I wanted (and they weren't) that has led to the lack of updates on this blog recently. Things are moving forward nicely again now, albeit in not quite the way I'd anticipated at this juncture, so I'm looking forward to lots more positive updates!