Drag and drop
If only all programs could utilize Windows’ drag and drop feature so that collaboration between applications is as possible as it is in Lectora. Lectora exploits it to the full.
Do you want a graphic on the page? Go to the folder containing the graphic and drag it from the folder to the stage. Lectora copies it, places it on the desktop and files it in an Images folder it creates for you.
Do you want to insert a video or audio file? Find it on your hard disk or on a CD, drag it onto the stage, and Lectora will add it to your title. Lectora also copies the file into a separate Media folder, which it creates behind the scenes. Lectora supports an extensive range of video file formats (including Microsoft .avi, Quicktime .mov, .mpg, Mpeg, Microsoft streaming video .asf, Real Media Streaming Video, and Windows Media Video), audio file formats (.wav, .midi, .mp3., .au, .aiff, .asf, and .rm), and external file formats (including Shockwave and Flash) which can simply be dropped into the title.
If you try to include non-supported formats, such as proprietary Acrobat or Microsoft files, Lectora adds the files to a separate Extras folder, and you then create a link using a hyperlink on the page. So, if you want to include references to external resources (for example a Word document or Acrobat file), you simply try to drag them in — and Lectora responds by creating a copy within the file structure in a separate folder, which can then be linked to and run as long as the end-user has the appropriate application.
Since I had the original program to work from, I had all its assets — text, audio, and graphics. In order to develop the content, all that was necessary was to drag the pictures, text, and audio onto the pages in the title, arrange them where I wanted them, and I was finished.
Properties, actions, and variables — PowerPoint on steroids
An important feature of Lectora is that all objects have properties. Double-clicking on any object brings up a dialogue that allows you to edit its properties. The properties available depend on which type of object you are trying to edit. For an example, see the properties for the title in Figure 3. Using the dialogue boxes, you can change features of the title such as: name of the title, screen resolution, page alignment for HTML publishing, background colours, default font and colors, and whether a background image or sound is used. You can also control how the content is published, i.e. whether it is a standard Lectora title (CD or HTML), a CourseMill 2.0 title, or an AICC/SCORM/CourseMill 3.0 title, and whether the title runs in full screen mode, uses frames, additional files, and transitions, or should be protected with a password.
Figure 3 Properties dialogue for Title, showing options that can be changed.
Many of the pages in the customer’s original program included a feature common to many other e-Learning programs — namely, the text and graphics built up on the page in synch with the audio narrative. While Lectora does not actually do this for you, it has a useful tool that makes it possible to accomplish this — the Action object.
The Action object allows sophisticated control of the program. By using Actions attached to objects, the developer can control the flow of the lesson to occur on certain events, for example, when an object displays, when the mouse rolls over it or out of it, or, in the case of media, when a clip finishes playing. Each Action object has an “On” property, an “Action” and a “Target.” For example by using Actions attached to my sound objects, I was able to control when the next graphic displayed and when the next audio clip started playing. I simply set the On property to when the clip was finished playing (Done playing), the action to play (Play) and the target to the name of the next clip. Thus, I was able to control the build-up of the lesson sequences to mimic the original. Actions can be applied to standard events such as keyboard input, mouse click, double mouse click, mouse enter, mouse exit, show (i.e. when an object is displayed), done, and so on.
I didn’t actually need to control branching based on performance — but Lectora also provides control over events in the title using variables. Lectora comes complete with a set of common system variables, such as time and date. It also allows the creation of user defined variables. For AICC/SCORM-compliant modules, Lectora adds all the variables needed — with default values — allowing you to set them as required.
Actions allow you to modify variables. So, for example, I could set a variable for the score achieved in a chapter and only allow the end-user to progress to the next chapter when he or she has achieved a certain score. Using variables dramatically extends the control the developer has over the flow or functions of the program, and takes Lectora from being a system solely for creating simple page-turning lessons rather like PowerPoint presentations, to a system with which it is possible to create sophisticated adaptive e-Learning modules — PowerPoint on steroids.
Quizzes
Lectora also includes a couple of structural elements for developing interactivity and assessments — the quiz and the test. Quizzes allow the creation of interactions in the form of questions throughout the module, whereas the test object combines a sequence of questions at the end of a section or chapter, automatically adds feedback and judging, and allows submission of the results back to a destination of your choice — for example, back to a CGI script or email.
Lectora includes all the standard question types including true/false, multiple choice, short answer, essay (without judging, of course), fill in the blank, matching, and a couple of graphical question types — drag-and-drop and hot-spot. I included a drag-anddrop question to test the system and it appeared to work OK — with the limitation that only getting the right answer would allow me to continue.
Publishing options
One of the most useful and flexible features of Lectora is its support for publishing to a variety of formats. Lectora supports publishing to a single file executable, CD-ROM, HTML, as well as SCORM 1.1, 1.2 and 2004, AICC, and LRN compliant formats. Note that some features that are available when published to executable or CD are not supported in HTML, such as the done-playing feature. In addition, Lectora supports the generation of packages that Trivantis’ proprietary LMS, CourseMill, can host. This is useful if you want to deploy Web-based training but do not have a Webserver/LMS environment.
For the rapid e-Learning developer this flexibility in publishing brings many benefits. If your organization is not ready to migrate to Web deployment of training — and I imagine there are many organizations in this category, because you are not geographically dispersed enough or do not have the infrastructure to go this route, this feature is for you. It provides you with the ability to be able to create both CD-ROM and Webbased training (standards-compliant or not) from the same source file.
My potential customer was not interested in a Web-based version or in SCORM or AICC compliancy — but wanted to be able to distribute the program via CD to remote sites and to be able to run it on their local networked PCs. Lectora is ideal for this. As part of the publishing process, Lectora checks the title for errors. In the case of HTML titles, it also checks for large file sizes. Once the check is completed, Lectora displays a list of errors and prompts you to correct the errors before publishing. Additionally, Lectora reports on any unused resources, such as graphics or media files, and offers the opportunity to delete them (or rather, to delete the copies of them which Lectora has created). The checking mechanism is a very simple idea but has the result of making sure that the published title will run optimally.
If you are going to deploy your title in a SCORM environment, Lectora will check that it is SCORMcompliant and will prompt if you have omitted setting the variables needed for each environment. Since I wasn’t interested in either SCORM or AICC compliancy (my customer does not use an LMS), I did not use these features. I would note, however, that although there is some discussion of SCORM and AICC features in the user guide, I would have liked to see a general discussion of the standard for the novice, to ensure understanding of the possibilities and benefits.
One other nice touch, which I did make use of, is that Lectora allows you to incorporate your own custom icon for the program before publishing, so you can stamp your own identity on your program. When I supplied the program to my customer, he was able to launch it with his company’s own icon on the desktop.
Other features
There are literally dozens of features in Lectora to fulfil most e-Learning developers aspirations, and certainly too many to address in this short review. I haven’t mentioned for example the Menu wizard (see Figure 4), which, with a few key strokes, can create a sophisticated menu — based on your input of menu items and sub items — and display it as a dropdown feature anywhere on the page. Nor have I mentioned the table of contents feature that allows the creation of a complete index for your title based on its structure — with all the navigation programmed in. Equally powerful and useful is the ability to drop Flash movies onto the desktop — a feature that will be of interest to those whose skills continue to develop from what is possible with only a basic knowledge of e-Learning development.
Figure 4 The Menu wizard, or menu builder
Conclusion — pros and cons
So what are my conclusions? If it was not already obvious, for a non-programmer or for an organization that wishes to develop either standards-based Web e-Learning sites or CD titles, I cannot recommend Lectora enough. It is the first authoring system I have used which I believe really lives up to the claim to being a flexible and powerful tool, whose only limits are the imagination of the developers using it.
Lectora is highly suitable for the e-Learning development novice because there is a range of tools and features to allow the very rapid creation of simple but effective e-Learning titles. However, the power of Lectora does not stop there because using variables and the Action object provides the additional power and flexibility to satisfy the experienced e-Learning developer, without the need to learn complex coding rules.
For my money, Lectora’s major plus points include:
- its WYSIWIG features,
- the Title wizard
- the powerful drag-and-drop facility
- the publishing options, and the support of various standards and formats
In my use of the program, I found very few complaints. If there was anything, I would suggest it was not being able to bring in objects using variables, and Trivantis may wish to add this feature to future releases. For example, there is no real way that you can add the text of a narrative from external files without creating each piece of text as a separate file and referencing the file by name. The same is true for audio or video clips. Another useful feature to have might be to control flow within a media clip.
For the time being though, I believe that most users of the program are likely to find more than enough features for the type of programs that they wish to produce. If rapid e-Learning is all about subject matter experts creating a learning program in a couple of weeks, then this is a tool which I believe should, at the very least, be in the short list for selection.
