I Came, I Saw, I Learned...

MS Word: Remove Line Breaks from Pasted Text

by AJ George 

Have you ever copied and pasted something into a Word document (such as from a pdf) and ended up with line breaks in crazy places? Or maybe every single word shows up on a separate line? Going in and manually fixing all of those line breaks can be a real headache. If you find yourself in such a pickle, use this quick fix to eliminate those hard line breaks.

1. Highlight the pasted text from which you would like to remove line breaks.
2. In MS Word 2010, press [Ctrl] [H] to access the Replace tool.
3. In the Find what field type ^p.
4. In the Replace with field press the spacebar once on your keyboard.
5. Click the Replace All button.
6. When asked if you'd like to perform the Find and Replace task for the rest of the document, click No.

This same process can be applied to MS PowerPoint and Outlook 2010.

Note: Check for any words that were hyphenated and broken in the middle by a line break and remove the hyphens before using this trick. Failing to do so will leave you with a space and a hyphen in the middle of the word. 

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

Adobe Captivate 6: Branch Aware

by Lori Smith

Branch Aware is new in Captivate 6. Unlike other new features (like HTML5 support and Themes), Branch Aware has gotten little attention and few people understand what the option does.

According to Adobe: "Use Branch Aware to calculate the final score based only on the questions in the branch that users have viewed. For example, consider that a project contains a quiz that branches into two modules that in turn contain a quiz. If a user reaches the module with three questions and 10 points each, the total score is considered as 30 points. If this option is not enabled, the scores are calculated on the total number of questions in the project and not the module that users actually viewed."

Huh? I don't know about you, but I find Adobe's description of Branch Aware to be confusing. Not to be deterred by Adobe's description, I set out to play with the Branch Aware feature and figure out what I could (and couldn't) do if I elected to use the option.

I created a simple project that is Branch Aware. You can download it here. The lesson has 12 questions. Each question is worth 10 points, so the total for the lesson is 120 (you can confirm the total point value via Project > Advanced Interactions). 

 

I enabled Branch Aware by choosing Edit > Preferences > Quiz > Settings and selecting Branch Aware from the group of Settings.

 

I broke the project into three quiz branches, each with four questions. The learner will only answer four questions for a total of 40 points. On slide 1, I added three buttons. Each button jumps to a different branch within the quiz (Beginner, Intermediate, Expert).  Taking a quick look at the Branching Window, (Window > Branching View), you can see the layout for my project.

 

To establish the branches, I not only needed to select the Branch Aware option, I also needed to set my question Actions properly. After the last question in each branch, I jumped the learner to the QuizResults slide.

 

If I hadn't set the last question in each branch to jump to the QuizResults slide, my question numbering would not display correctly. 

  

Once a learner takes my quiz, the QuizResults screen will display the appropriate scoring for the branch that the learner took.

 

Even cooler? If the learner chooses "Review Quiz" once reaching the quiz results slide, the learner will only review the relevant part of the quiz.

I was also surprised to find out that you can still require that the learner answer all questions within a branch. 

 

I tried everything I could think of to mess up the scoring results, but my lesson reported properly each time. The bottom line is that Branch Aware is one mighty cool feature. Give it a try and I think you'll agree.  

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? We teach two live, online Captivate 6 classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

Writing & Grammar: Lay Versus Lie--The Truth

by Jennie Ruby  

Two words have seldom been more confusing than the two verbs lay and lie. Yes, they are actually two different words, but the first area of confusion is that the simple past tense of lie is spelled exactly the same as the word lay. Not only that, but the main difference between the word lie and the word lay is that lie is intransitive and lay is transitive--a grammatical concept not instantly familiar to most of us. Here's how to pick the correct word every time.

Step 1. Pick which word you are using by replacing it with its synonym. If you can replace the verb with recline, you are using lie. If you can replace the verb with place, you are using lay.

Lie = rest or recline. You just do it.

I will lie [recline] on the sofa.

Lay = place. You do it TO something.

I will lay [place] the blanket on the grass.

Step 2. Pick the verb tense.

Lie: lie, lay, lying, lain

Today I lie down. Tomorrow I will lie down. Yesterday I lay down. I am/was lying down. I have lain on the sofa for an hour.

Lay: lay, laid, laying

Today I lay the papers down. Tomorrow I will laythe papers down. Yesterday I laid the papers down. I was laying the papers down. I have laid the papers down.

Here is your challenge: correct the usage of the verbs lay and lie in these sentences.

1. She said she was going to go to Cancun and lay on the beach for a while.
2. Last summer we went to the beach and lay in the sun for hours.
3. Just five minutes ago I lay the papers directly on the manager's desk.
4. Last month we lay the ground work for our new learning management system.
5. Next month we will lay the ground work for new systems to be installed over the next three years.
6. He told the dog to lay down.
7. The carpenter said he needed to lay a new foundation for our porch.
8. Yesterday we solved the problem with our new server. The answer lay in the way we had configured our start-up menu.
9. Don't worry about your future, Grasshopper. All of the answers lay within your grasp.
10. The geocache lays just 100 yards south of the river.
11. These old umbrellas have laid here in the corner for more than a year.
12. She could have laid the map on the table, but she chose to spread it out on the floor.

Results of the Apostrophes Challenge

Here are the answers to the apostrophes challenge, brought to you by Denise Kelly:

1. The carrots were on sale at the organic market today
2. We have two capital letters in IconLogic.
3. The word judgment does not have two e's.
4. Back in the 1950s writers used a lot more apostrophes.
5. How many i's are in your name?
6. Many companies find that new hires do not know the three Rs.
7. How many alibis does he need?
8.  Are you still getting tomatoes from your garden?
9. Ellie drank two coffees and a tea before the important meeting.
10.  How many OKs do I need to click?

All of these illustrate the correct and/or modern usage. The most common errors I saw in responses were using the apostrophe with the three Rs and with OKs. Modern usage guides say that capital letters do not need to be italic and do not need the apostrophe when you are making them plural. A number of respondents liked the apostrophe in alibi's. That is one where the dictionary does give alibis as the plural, but personal preference may dictate that the apostrophe makes it easier to read. Thank you to all respondents on this one: Kathryn Meloch, Jimmy Moon, Jason Neilson, Megan Seymour, Lindsey Mayer, J Dicerson, Michael Stein, Minnie Johnson, Jay Herman, Denise Kelly, Jeffrey Mcmayon, Jennifer Dolesh, Audra Lyons, Chris Zimmel, and Linda Tromanhauser

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If you like Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Join her online and learn about Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Step-by-Step Scripts and Training Documents.

PowerPoint: Is SlideShark Dead in the Water? (Hint: Only Minnow-mally)

by AJ George 

I've previously written about presentation apps for iDevices. I didn't have a lot of luck in my pursuit of decent PowerPoint presentation tools, but I did have success with one:SlideShark. Since my previous article, SlideShark has made some updates to its app that I'd like to share.

What is SlideShark?

SlideShark is an app for iOS with an accompanying website. First you upload presentations online at www.slideshark.comand then you can use your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch to share your presentations on the go. Animations, fonts, graphics, and colors are all preserved. Slides can also be shared through the app for on-demand viewing and statistical tracking. Interested in other sites for PowerPoint deck sharing? Click here.

So what's new? 

Version 2.0 expanded the app beyond just the iPad to include the iPhone as well. Taking the iPhone's screen size into consideration, a pinch to zoom feature (that is not available on the iPad) was added to the app. It will also work on the iPod touch.

But that's not all. Just a month after releasing 2.0, SlideShark debuted version 2.1. With the new release came direct access to Box and Dropbox accounts. Rather than downloading your presentation from Box or Dropbox, uploading it to the SlideShark site, and then accessing it from the SlideShark app, you can now access your cloud-stored presentations from right within the app.  I linked the app on my iPhone to my Dropbox account and found that the service does work as promised--eventually. Connecting the app to Dropbox was a bit of a process, as it took several tries to get the app to connect. I tried on the iPad first but found that the app would get caught up and never finish the process. The iPhone took a couple tries but was eventually successful. After connecting Dropbox, I had further troubles getting the presentations from my Dropbox account to download. A dialog box saying I didn't have access to the feature at that time popped up several times (on the iPad as well as the iPhone) before the app finally gave in and let me download the presentation. So, in summary: this feature does work. BUT don't wait 'til the last minute before an important meeting or presentation, as it may give you fits for a little while.

The newest version also boasts video support, but I had no luck with this. Videos in my presentation did not play at all. I tried clicking the video, but doing so only advanced me to the next slide. I also tried changing my Slideshark settings to auto advance the slide (so no clicking would be necessary), but this did not work either. I checked out the Slideshark blog and learned that the app does not currently support  .mov, .mp4, .qt, and .aav files. So, in the end, user error on that one, but it would have been nice to have a heads up on that within the app without having to search the Slideshark blog. If your videos are in one of the unsupported file formats, using a video converter before embedding should fix the issue for you.

Need to be able to work a room? With version 2.1 your iPhone can use Bluetooth to act as a remote control for the presentation on your iPad.  If you lose Bluetooth connectivity your phone will vibrate to alert you, as you will need to reconnect the devices. I tried it out and found that it worked flawlessly. After ensuring both my iPad and iPhone were set to use Bluetooth, it took only a couple taps to connect the two. I tested the reach of the remote feature and was able to get outside the office and about 100 feet outside the building before I lost connectivity. My iPhone did vibrate when I lost connectivity, but it also vibrated every time I progressed a slide (albeit not as much), so that was a bit confusing.

What's still missing?

I'd like to see the iPhone remote control functionality expanded to work as a remote for desktop systems as well. Being able to use the iPad as the remote in these instances would be nice too; then you could have large format notes, etc. available right in front of you with your remote. Expansion of video file format compatibility would certainly be a plus for me. I'm also excited for the release of the Android app for Google Play which, rumor has it, is on the horizon (no exact release date). 

Overall, the updates are great and have the potential to really help out those who need to be able to present on the go. A little fine tuning of that Dropbox download function and some additional features couldn't hurt, but since this is afree app, there is a lot to like here. 

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations.

Adobe Captivate 6: Scrolling Text in a Text Entry Box

by Kevin Siegel  

Text Entry Boxes (TEBs) allows your learners to type directly into your eLearning lesson. Personally, I think TEBs offer the highest level of interactivity you can add to a lesson without the need for advanced programming skills. To add a TEB to a lesson, simply choose Insert > Standard Objects > Text Entry Box.

The assumed default usage of a TEB is short bursts of information entered by your learner. For instance, many people use TEBs to simulate access into an application (the learner is asked to type a username and/or a password). However, there are instances where you might want the learner to type a sentence or two (to simulate the use of a word processor or a text field where multiple lines of text are acceptable).

In the image below, I previewed a lesson and typed a fairly long sentence into a TEB. Notice that once I reached the right side of the TEB, instead of wrapping to a second or third line, the text continued to move right.  

  

 

If you'd like to allow the learner's text to wrap to multiple lines, the solution is simple. Select the TEB and, on the Options group of the Properties panel, select Show Scrollbar.

 

  

When you next preview the lesson and type within the TEB, the text will wrap to the next line (just like you'd see in a typical word processor). 

 

  

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? I teach two live, online Captivate 6 classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

Mac Troubleshooting: It's Time for the Time Machine

by AJ George 

When I need to create screen captures on my Macintosh, I turn to Skitch. Skitch is simple to use, it's stable, and, heck, I even like the way the app looks. I love it. 

When I heard that a new version of Skitch was available, I immediately upgraded. I soon regretted my decision. After starting the new Skitch, I was now required to have an Evernote account to use Skitch. The simple functionality I once enjoyed was gone. I wanted my old Skitch back. However, to add insult to injury, going back to the old version wasn't possible. I did not have the old Skitch installer, and there was no way to revert back to a previous version of Skitch from within the app. 

Thankfully, I use Time Machine to back up my Macintosh every hour. (Time Machine is the built-in backup feature that works with the Mac and an external drive.) When my Mac got sick and died earlier this year, I was able to use my Time Machine to totally rebuild my old system onto the new Macintosh.

I could have wiped my Macintosh clean and used the Time Machine to put it back to the way it was before I installed the new Skitch. However, I have recently learned that my Time Machine can turn back time on just one application. Assuming you're using the Time Machine feature (and I urge you to take advantage of it), here's how to roll back a single application:

1. From your Mac's dock, open the Finder.
2. Select Applications.
3. Select the offending app from the Applications list.
4. With the offending app selected, right-click the time machine icon from the menu bar at the top right of your screen.
     
5. Select Enter Time Machine from the drop-down menu.
6. From the timeline at the right, select a time you'd like to restore to.
7. Click Restore.

Your app will revert back to the way it was before you updated it. In the instance of my screen-grabber, I am greatly relieved to have my much-loved older version of Skitch back in place.   

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

eLearning: Are Games Really Necessary?

by AJ George 

I like the idea of games in learning, generally speaking. Why shouldn't learning be fun? Set the capitals of the states to music, turn the stock market into a game, great. But lately the eLearning community is all aflutter about the gamification of learning. Game this. Video that. Avatar all the things!

Sure, I think there's a place for games in learning. Yes, I think to some degree games can improve learner engagement.

But what about retention? What about actual knowledge gain? And mostly, what about the message we, as eLearning developers, are sending? Should everything be a game?

Last week a game-based school for 6th graders opened in Los Angeles. From what little I could dig up about it, it looks like attending the school would be a blast. But I have to wonder how kids attending a school where everything is a game are going to turn out. Will they be motivated to do anything if there's not a prize at the end? Will the students want to learn for the pure joy of discovery and the attainment of knowledge, or will they always only be focused on leveling-up? What about when they enter the workplace? Will their jobs need to be set up on an instant gratification game system? Or will it even matter, because at that point all of our job training and all of our work will be gamified as well?

Conversely, maybe these kids will go on to be super-motivated brainiacs because they "learned to learn" in an environment based upon fun and games. I certainly don't know. What's concerning to me, is that I'm not sure if anyone knows. Are we gamifying things because it's the new, fun, thing to do? Or are we doing it because it works?

I have mostly questions, and no answers. I've yet to come across any research that goes beyond how gamification can be applied, instead focusing on whether or not gamification works. What I did find was an interesting survey conducted by the Pew Research Center (Gamification: Experts expect 'game layers' to expand in the future, with positive and negative results). I found it interesting because it looked at gamification from both sides, pointing out that some industry experts think gaming can be "fun, useful, increasing engagement and personal improvement" while others say it can also be "manipulative, insidious." Because it was only an opinion survey, however, there was no statistical data on whether the gaming is working.

Have you found any studies on the effectiveness of games in learning? What are your thoughts on the gamification of learning? I would love to hear from you.

In the meantime, check out this infographic from Knewton about the Gamification of Education. (And, if you'd like to know how to make your own infographic, check out this blog post on using PowerPoint.)  

Update: Just a few days after I wrote this article, I stumbled upon an infographic by OnlineSchools.com that goes into a little more detail about gaming in education.   

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

Writing & Grammar: Verb Agreement

by Jennie Ruby  

Verb agreement. On one level, it is considered elementary: one dog runs, two dogs run. But as soon as your sentences become a little more sophisticated, verb agreement becomes more challenging. For example, if I have a collective noun, such as staff, but the individual staff members act separately, do I use plural or singular? Is it

1. The staff is working on their new assignments this Monday.
2. The staff are working on their new assignments this Monday.
3. The staff is working on its new assignment this Monday.

Choice A is incorrect because I treated staff as a singular word when I chose my verb, is, and I treated staff as a plural word when I referred back to the staff using their. This mismatch is considered ungrammatical.  The correct answers are B and C, depending on whether each employee is working on a separate assignment or the whole staff is working on the same assignment.

Other problems with verb agreement occur with singular pronouns such as each, which are often followed by plural nouns. In the following sentence, each is the singular subject--don't let yourself be fooled by the word cups:

Each of the cups is decorated with a unique design.

When you start a sentence backward, by using a false subject or by starting with the verb, you may have to go hunting for the true subject later in the sentence:

There were three cups in the sink.

The true subject is cups, so the verb is the plural were.

And when you have multiple subjects in your sentence, watch out! If they are joined by the word or, you simply match your verb to the subject closest to it.

These problems and others are addressed in this week's challenge. See if you agree that verb agreement is not just for elementary school anymore! As always, please send your answers to me.

Select the correct verb from the choices in parentheses

1. The smoke (was/were) coming from the tin stovepipe atop the garage.
2. A pack of smokes (was/were) lying on the ground beside the car.
3. The class (is/are) meeting on Tuesday to discuss their projects.
4. The tree or the bushes (has/have) to be trimmed before the new driveway can be put in.
5. The electric pole and the mailbox (has/have) to be moved as well.
6. There (is/are) at least three reasons we want to attend the class.
7. Entering the ballroom after midnight (was/were) five members of the football team.
8. Smith, Michaels and Brown (is/are) the law firm representing the company.
9. Either of the curtains (is/are) a good choice for the décor of the room.
10. Neither the player nor the ball (was/were) over the goal line.

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If you like Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Join her online and learn about Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Step-by-Step Scripts and Training Documents.

eLearning: Quick Infographics

by AJ George 

Last week I wrote about how to use PowerPoint to design your own infographic. It wasn't too hard, but hey, we're not all designers here, amirite? If designing your own infographic had you throwing up your hands in defeat, maybe you should try out Easel.ly.

Here's how it works

From www.easel.ly click the start fresh slide to get started.

 

The following window works as a pasteboard, similar to what you will find when editing a slide in PowerPoint.

 

Click the Vhemes button to view available themes and drag the one you would like to use to the pasteboard. All elements of the infographic are editable and clickable. Double-clicking the text will open a text box for editing the text. You can change the font, font size, font color, background color, etc.

 

You are also given the choice to enter Objects broken down in categories like people, animals, icons, etc. If you don't find what you want there, or you'd like to incorporate your own logo, you can click the upload button to add in your own images.

 

Easel.ly will not take all of the work out of infographics. You'll still need to put in the time to research the facts and stats you want to share. Using the pre-made themes is pretty quick work, but if you want to get the infographic to look just the way you want, it may take more time than you like to change the fonts/sizes/colors from their default settings. That being said, if you're set on creating an infographic but don't know where to start from a design perspective, Easel.ly is a great choice.

Have you used Easel.ly to create an infographic? Or something similar? Share your experience in the comments below.

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

Adobe Captivate 6: When It Comes to Quizzes, Go All In

by Kevin Siegel  

When a learner takes a quiz created with Adobe Captivate, failure by the learner to click the Submit button on each and every question is a recurring problem. Many learners don't realize that a question is considered incorrect if it's skipped. And the answer is skipped if the Submit button isn't clicked. How can a learner miss clicking the Submit button? I've seen learners select a correct answer, and then click a slide's Next button to move to the next question. Only after seeing the Quiz Results slide will a learner understand that clicking the Submit button was mandatory. By clicking Next, the answer was never submitted for scoring, and was counted as an incorrect answer. Ouch!

I've gotten plenty of emails from developers wishing there was a way to ensure that learners didn't forget to click the Submit button. I'm happy to report that there is finally a Quiz setting available in Captivate 6 that will help.

Choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences. From the Settings group, select Submit All from the Setting area.

The Submit button on every question slide will be replaced with a Submit All button. Of course, the same learner who didn't understand the importance of clicking the Submit button, will likely have the same issue with the Submit All button. The wonderful thing about the Submit All button is what happens should a learner click a slide's Next button on the last question in the quiz, or the Submit All button on any slide.

Check out the alert dialog box shown below. Thanks to the Submit All option, there's simply no way a learner can avoid answering every question. 

After clicking the OK button, the learner will be required to go back through the Quiz and answer any questions that had not been completed. Once the learner has answered every question, the Submit All Answers button can be clicked while the learner is on any slide. Once clicked, the learner will see the alert dialog box below.

In a future version of Captivate, I'd love to see more information about which questions haven't been answered by the learner (in the first Submit All dialog box). As it stands now, learners will need to go through every question slide looking for anything that hasn't been answered. Nevertheless, the Submit All option is a step in the right direction. 

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? I teach two live, online Captivate 6 classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).