Epochal change for e-learning?
While we were all waiting for Storyline 3, the guys at Articulate were quietly developing 360 which appears to be the most capable, efficient and versatile SaaS (Software as a Service) product ever in the e-learning world.
Based on first impressions, here are the two features that, I believe, have the potential to usher us into a whole new era of e-learning development by affording us the control and flexibility we have always wanted. Let’s take a look at these amazing new services from Articulate.
Rise – Very aptly named, this new online authoring tool offering in Articulate 360 really rises to the occasion at a time when learning designers have really been yearning for that unicorn that would let us produce responsive courses(yes, not just e-learning objects, we are talking full length courses here) for any device and practically without any effort. This is indeed that tool.
If I were to judge by the video demonstration on Articulate’s website, Rise seems to let you produce responsive courses as if by magic – no rearranging of elements or resizing text – it just works. With Rise, you should be able to author just once in the desktop mode and let its AI take over to resize and realign everything neatly for you, thus saving you some valuable development time.
Rise does not replace the old Storyline (there is a new Storyline 360 now) but is several notches better in its own right. Unlike Storyline 2 e-learning modules which the Storyline mobile player just shrank to fit mobile screens, Rise courses will scale with your learners’ devices, and they can still be published to any Tin Can, SCORM or AICC-compliant LMS. In your free trial, do explore the blockslesson type.
What was not amply clear from the demo video is if Rise allows course development in the mobile mode first and then auto-magically scales the content up for desktop and tablet screens. We all know that we are now moving towards a mobile-first era of the web, and this would be a flexibility we would all expect from the tool.
Review – For an e-learning author, there is nothing more painful than stakeholders rejecting their module after months of design and development work. For most authors, even in today’s world of rapid prototyping and AGILE learning development, feedback often comes very late in the development process.
In the absence of proper web tools for sharing prototypes with stakeholders and gathering their feedback, we have been making-do with sharing modules via an LMS or a service like TempShare, and then inviting feedback via emails or meetings. Review addresses this disconnect between purpose, process and platform by offering us one seamless online environment that will not have us make compromises in our course development work anymore.
When subscribed to Articulate 360, the moment you publish a Storyline course, it appears on Review which then lets you invite stakeholders to view the course and give their feedback on the same platform. Comments are tagged to course frames so you know exactly what someone has commented on and the comments appear in a modern-looking social media-style chat section on the same screen.
What Review does best (and this is a game changer for me) is its version control feature. It saves every new iteration you share with your stakeholders and you can easily toggle between versions and see how your e-learning module has evolved with every feedback cycle and if the team (including your stakeholders) are on the right track towards a quality product.
Review seems to be the ultimate tool built for AGILE learning development, and I highly recommend signing up for that free trial.
At the time of writing this article (Nov, 2106), the basic pricing on Articulate 360 looked like this.
Business users
$599per user, first year existing customers (for individuals)
$799per user, first year existing customers (for teams)
Education users
$299per user, first year existing customers (for individuals)
$399per user, first year existing customers (for teams)
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