Tools of My Trade

I've been thinking recently about all of the tools that are used in creating elearning courses. Each tool of course has it's own purpose and when you are able to use them correctly they can help you create something fantastic. I thought I'd share the tools of my trade that I use and how I use them.

Articulate Studio is what started me on the path for eLearning creation. It is one of my standard tools and the more I use it the more flexible I'm able to be with presentation creation. I've had some of my co-workers use this tool to create their own elearning courses with much success.

Camtasia Studio has become my best friend and constant companion recently. I'm in the middle of working on several different video projects so this has been the tool sitting on the top of my tool box for a while.

Audacity is a tool that I've used for audio recording and editing for many different projects. It is very easy to use and I've published podcasts with it as well as used the audio files I've created from it with my video files in Camtasia (I love it when things work together).

Adobe Flash CS4 this tool has been by far the most difficult one for me to learn how to use. I'm not a computer expert and my technological expertise is non-existent. With that being said, I am proud to say that I've taken some on-line courses and learned how to use it and my first eLearning presentation using this tool will be published shortly. I can see many possible uses for it in the future.

Cartoon Solutions is a tool that I love. It enables me to add additional interesting elements to my presentations whether I'm utilizing PowerPoint or Flash. These characters really help bring the presentations to life.

Then of course there are various other tools I use to incorporate pictures and music into presentations but they are too numerous to list.

As I have used these tools I've learned some shortcuts and easier (for me at least) ways to work with them and those are what I'll be sharing in future posts.