Learn how to use Acrobat.com as a Learning Management System for Captivate 5 projects. It's a great way to get started with eLearning without a huge investment in an LMS.
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eLearning courses require a learning management system to keep track of who's taken what part of a course and who's passed or failed the assessments. What if you want to offer eLearning, however, but don't have an LMS? Enter Adobe Captivate 5 and its new integration with acrobat.com.
With Captivate 5, you can connect your assessment results to any SCORM or AICC compliant LMS and also to the Adobe Connect Enterprise LMS, now referred to as Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro in the prefs (which is interesting, since the product is now called simply Adobe Connect, but who's being picky...). New in Captivate 5 is the ability to report results to an acrobat.com account or to your own internal server. Of course, your own server would need a means of capturing the results, so you'd have to write a PHP, Cold Fusion or some other script to capture and record the results. We'll take a look at acrobat.com reporting in this post.
Take the quiz here to help me test the limits of the system. It's only four questions, so it won't take long.
Reporting to acrobat.com is easy. Open Preferences, then choose Reporting under the Quiz area. Enable reporting for this project, and then choose Acrobat.com. Click Configure... and enter your Acrobat.com credentials and the Company, Department and Course that define this project. Courses might have several parts, so you can aggregate several different assessments and projects into one course for reporting.
Once you click Save, Captivate will talk to acrobat.com and build the database to store the incoming quiz results.
The results are easy to get out with the Adobe Captivate Quiz Results Analyzer, an AIR app that comes with Captivate but which is also available for free at adobe.com. Results can be viewed directly in the Quiz Analyzer or downloaded as CSV or as raw XML. CSV can then be opened in Excel or another database, while the XML download contains a file for each response. These can be parsed individually or as a whole.
The Quiz Analyzer asks you to choose a server then enter your credentials for that server. The Quiz Analyzer can look into Acrobat.com and other servers that you configure in the preferences panel under the Options button. Once you enter your Acrobat.com credentials, it allows you to select projects by company, department and course. Once you have set these three selectors, click Generate Report, and the lessons will then appear in the detail panel below.
Double click the project to see the overall results per learner. Double click the learner to see the results per question. The CSV reports reflect the currently visible data, so you will need to export to CSV several times to get the full data for each learner. Consider using the SQLite DB file that coordinates the XML export, or importing the XML into your favorite database application or spreadsheet.
When I do my monthly talks about Adobe Connect for eLearning and Rapid Training (second Tuesdays of each month usually; check for actual schedule), I often get asked how to get the data after the fact. Now, you can use acrobat.com to get the data. Of course, a robust LMS will make it easier to manage large numbers of courses and learners, but if you're just getting started, this is a great way to get into the eLearning game.
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While it's Windows only for now, it shows that Adobe is committed to DAM and Versioning, despite its decision not to continue development of Version Cue. When CS5 was announced, I got a lot of negative feedback from my customers who depend on Version Cue for project versioning and PDF review management. The killing of VC left them wondering where to turn for version control in the creative space as they transitioned to CS5.
While tools like Subversion and Git are popular in the software development arenas, there aren't integrated solutions for the graphics community to those repositories. Other DAMs and VC platforms exist, but their interfaces are often clunky and require several steps to check parts of a project in and out.
Version Cue provided in-app support for version inspection and reordering, allowing the user to promote a previous version to the current one without losing the current version. This would send a signal to everyone working on the project that the asset had changed, and that they needed to update it. VC also prevented simultaneous editing of graphics (Illustrator and Photoshop) and documents (InDesign and InCopy).
This quiet revelation has me itching to see the released product. I am eager to see whether it will include Git and/or Subversion connectors as well.
Installed the iMT plugin just now for my MovableType blog. Zero configuration; just drop it in and it works! Now I can manage and create entries from the iPhone. Imagine how much less real work I can get done now!
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The top case contains the keyboard and the track pad, and it rests inside and slightly on top of the edge of the bottom case. The screen bezel has two little ridges in it that keep the screen from touching the keyboard when the computer is closed. When these computers go in a bag (like the bags that come with the computers when they are part of the MLTI...), there is additional pressure that gets applied to the top case by these ridges. The result is catastrophic failure of the plastic where the ridge touches the plastic.
I brought the computer in, and they took it without question. Quoting the Problem Description/Diagnosis portion of the Genius Bar Work Authorization,
Issue: Customer states there are cracks in the top caseSteps to Reproduce: Observed cracks at the barProposed Resolution: Replace top caseTotal cost: $0.00
Makes sense to me! I left the computer at the bar around 12:45 pm, expecting to get a call tomorrow. I got the call at 2:00 pm, telling me that the repair was complete. Go Apple!
In addition to the top case, the repaired computer also has a new screen bezel that includes the camera. AJ reports crisper images from the camera. Another benefit for him is that the case had become wracked as it compressed, making it difficult to eject CDs and DVDs from the slot loading drive. Discs now glide in and out with ease.
It is important to note that this computer was repaired without question and without an Apple Care contract. While I haven't been able to find notice of a replacement program at apple.com, this seems to be the real deal, at least in Maine.
Here's the second in a series of short videos featuring Flash Catalyst. It talks about buttons and how to reuse and style them.
So, here I sit, in the Apple Store in South Portland, Maine, while my wife's new iPhone 3GS (we both had our 3GS phones replaced due to case cracking yesterday) continues to not work properly.
Upon replacing the phone and restoring it from the last backup, the phone (now iOS 4.01; the backup was iOS 4, and the phone was OS 3.x until a day or so before the swap.) exhibits the following symptoms:
- Safari crashes when visiting any site
- App Store crashes when updating the one app that needs updating
- We determined that other apps that depend on the network may or may not fail; there isn't a definite correlation between what makes them crash.
So, we restored the phone to factory new, and then synced it with her computer.
Initially, surfing the web crashed Safari, but we wiped out the bookmarks and the cached pages and cookies, and we could surf the web. Yay! Although we could surf the web, we couldn't set up any email accounts. Boo! Google Apps (gMail, actually) claimed that the password was wrong, but I was able to setup the same account on my iPhone without any trouble. Quite easily, in fact.
I then removed all of the apps from the phone in the hope that there was an app that was causing the conflict with iOS 4. That didn't do the job.
Out came another brand-new iPhone 3GS, and we moved the SIM card and began the restore process. Unfortunately, the phone was iOS 3, so it had to be upgraded to iOS4 before we could continue. Unfortunately, the phone failed the OS upgrade, with the ever helpful "Unknown error."
Moving the new new phone to another computer for restore, it failed, so we declared it DOA. Now, back to the one we got yesterday for another try.
After restoring it to factory new, we were unable to surf the web. So, now I have had three different iPhone geniuses poring over the phone, and all are puzzled.
Next, we take the new phone (not the DOA one from today, but the replacement from yesterday) and restore it to new phone state, without ever connecting it to my wife's computer. In this factory new state, the phone wouldn't run Safari! Now, we have at least a diagnosis: the new phone has some issue with its network hardware that prevents it from working properly. Unfortunately, between my wife and I, we have exhausted the on-hand phones, so there is no replacement phone available. One was ordered, and should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday.
All in all, we had three computers attached to several iPhones in different combinations for over three and a half hours with a diagnosis, but no satisfaction. Now, the new phone is back to its hobbled state, able to work as a phone and get email, but unable to surf the web.
In this teaser, we convert an Illustrator file to Flash Catalyst. The project is an e-book reader made specifically for Alice in Wonderland. Learn more at cs-magic.com
Once again, I am left scratching my head by an Apple update. First, we are told that the algorithm used to calculate how many bars to display for signal strength was flawed, and that the number of bars shown did not correspond properly to the signal strength. Then, we were told that in order to make signal strength clearer to the user, Apple would increase the size of the bars that the iPhone would display.
I installed iOS4 just now, and was struck by two things:
- First, the bars are indeed a little bigger. Now, I won't be left wondering whether one bar (which looked like an underscore) was really zero bars.
- Second, the number of bars my iPhone 3GS displays in my dining room is now LESS than it was prior to the update.
So, I guess that for me, the phone was giving me an optimistic response to signal strength before the update, and now it's telling me truthfully how lousy my AT&T coverage is.
Consumer Reports has decided to not recommend the iPhone 4 due to what it calls an antenna design flaw.
This is in direct conflict with Apple's unbelievable letter to the public that the phone's problems are with the software that displays how many bars you have, and not with the antenna design. Come on, Apple, fess up and fix the problem. It's a sign of a good company that makes exciting products and keeps the public energized about its brand. It a sign of a great company that owns up to its mistakes and fixes them before they become a public relations nightmare.
Look at Toyota. Their recall problems over the last year are legendary. However, have you heard that Honda has had similar recalls? Sure thing, my Honda Odyssey and a whole slew of other Honda cars were recalled for braking and transmission problems. Hmm, sound familiar? The thing is, though, that Honda reached out to us owners through the mail and through communication from the dealer to get us in to the dealer and get the problems solved. I didn't have to learn about it on the evening news, and I feel a lot better about my Honda.
I believe that Apple's customers would feel a lot better about their iPhone 4 purchase (and, of course, future technology purchases from Apple) if it would take steps now to fix the phones and get new ones into the hands of its customers.
