The authoring environment looks familiar as it has a WYSIWIG editor, a panel with the course structure and elements and contextual menus for every kind of manipulation. The free edition that I tried out allows you to make a basic course, but won't let you change the provides screen templates, has only 2 question types, and only exports in HTML and SCORM 1.2 formats to cite a few of the limitations. There is online help, a LinkedIn and Yammer community and webinars to help you getting started. This is how the editor looks like:
Easygenerator has all the features you'd expect from an e-learning authoring tool in 2013:
- Of course, these tools need to support all current standards (SCORM, AICC, 508 etc) and have the emerging ones on their radar (Tin Can API, HTML5). This is the case.
- These tools need to support the 'traditional' e-learning components such as glossary, multimedia pages, various kind of interactions, navigation (preferably also non-linear), etc. This is the case.
- People often think that the time spent behind the authoring tool is the time it takes to create elearning. Far from it. One of the reasons the production of an e-learning module can eat hours is the efficiency of the review cycles. For me, a modern tool must have a commenting and review function, and hopefully with a limited workflow embedded. EasyGenerator comes with comment features and you can invite people to make comments via the web.
- Easy of use and support are also crucial. The webinar will set you on your way, there are YouTube videos and an online help to walk you through. But overall the tool is pretty self-explaining, at least if you are familiar with Windows programs and e-learning authoring.
One of the unique selling propositions of EasyGenerator is the build-in template for adaptive learning. Here is how it works: you create learning objectives, and link those with pre-test questions as well as content pages. The student then goes through the pre-test and gets a study-advice of what he or she still has to master. Here is a slideshare presentation that gives you an idea:
The resulting teaser course I made looks like this. I think it took me an hour, maybe two.
So, what did I think of my short experience with EasyGenerator Free Edition?
I think indeed it is an easy but powerful tool to create what is now regarded as 'traditional' e-learning modules: you know, the ones with next buttons and pages and tables of content and text+media pages and questions and glossaries. I wouldn't give out this tool to a Subject Matter Expert (of course that depends on the technical savvy in your organisation). To me this is still a tool to be used by the professional e-learning producers or the training department. It has everything you can expect from an e-learning production tool in 2013, including team features and online comments.
Personally I would have liked to make the page layout a bit more contemporary, but that is a paid feature.
The most impressive is the build-in adaptive learning combined with learning goals. Most if not all of the other e-learning production tools I tried have nothing that comes close and even neglect learning outcomes and keep them out of the production process and tool. But as the makers of EasyGenerator rightfully state: if there is no learning goal, why have the content in the first place? It makes you as a producer think more about the goals, and as a consumer it allows you to focus on only that what you need.
No comments:
Post a Comment