5 Responses

1. Recommendation
   Hi Jackie!

   You don’t mention if the software in question is a bespoke system or an off-the-shelf one, as sometimes, with the latter, the software vendor offers ready-made e-learning modules.

   If it’s your own software, then it will all depend on how interactive and dynamic you want the on-screen action to be.

   If you are happy for annotated screen grabs of each screen, for instance, then a tool such as Articulate (www.articulate.com) with its Engage module, is easy to use. Other screen-emulation tools are Camtasia Studio (www.camtasiastudio.com) and Adobe Captivate (www.adobe.com).

   At the other extreme, then you may well require the services of expert e-learning developers.

   But, do take a look at Atlantic Link (www.atlantic-link.co.uk). Their solution is proving very popular with corporate clients and they offer some demos of software training that’s been created using their tools on their website. If that’s the sort of thing you were visualising, then they would be worth chatting to.

2. A couple of freebies
   Hi Jackie

   If your budget is tight there are a couple of free tools that might help:

   Wink (http://www.debugmode.com/wink/) is a very easy to use screen capture tool for creating presentations. It has limited interactivity though.

   Also look at CourseLab (www.courselab.com). It is largely free but you need to buy an add on (about USD99 I believe) to do screen captures. Again I have found it very easy to use.

3. Software Emulation
   Try Captivate. We frequently use to to do a Show Me / Try Me option within our e-learning. You could use it for a full module if you needed to.

   We find it very effective to provide emulation training for software. It isn’t overly expensive and can be used in conjunction with other e-learning packages.

   Kevin

4. We have successfully used Captivate
   We have just used Captivate for the same purpose. It was relatively inexpensive very user friendly and gave us an in house tailor made product in a very short space of time. The trainers found it fun to use. We set up a group from the business to agree style and terminology (jargon)before we began and gained buy in for our first foray into this learning.

5. Simulation software
   Hello Jackie,

   There are a number of options available to you as mentioned in other responses. Intellego the company within which I work can provide you with full design services using programs like captivate to develop good quality learning programs (we have done this for a large number of organisations). We also have a product called Team Trainer which could potentially offer a better solution. Team trainer will actively capture all of the live menus within your software and allow you to specify learning pathways to teach people how to run through activities. The output is something which appears exactly like the actual software the user will be using enhancing the learning.
   If you would like to have a demonstration of the software please let me know – we can do this online via a web browser minimising your time and inconvenience.
   Regards

   Graham Turner
   Director
   Intellego
   0191 2263505