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Blended & Online Learning Design Fellows

Blended & Online Learning Design Fellows

Adobe Captivate

The newest version, Adobe Captivate 8, is an e-learning authoring software that allows its user to create e-learning suites compatible with computers, tablets and smartphones.

Potential Uses

  • Use Captivate to create online learning modules that include content delivery, opportunities to interact with the content, and assessment.
  • The new user interface allows addition of actors, voice, interactions, and quizzes to PowerPoint presentations.
  • The responsive authoring tool allows adaptation of the learning module to any screen.
  • Assessments can be developed from customizable quiz templates and random question pool selection, making evaluation simple and effective.

Pros

  • It adjusts to the learner. Students can be given additional information or redirected to appropriate pages if they incorrectly answer a quiz question.
  • It shows where the learners are. Geolocation, when enabled, allows the instructor to see the latitude and longitude of the learners.
  • It supports HTML5, meaning you can create content that will work on mobile and Apple devices.

Cons

  • The new, simplified tool bar, hides many functions must be found in the large banner menu or by using shortcut keys, making it a bit cryptic to use.
  • It’s learning curve is steep. Getting used to Captivate takes a little bit of time.

Getting Started

Adobe offers a free 30-day trial of Captivate.

Very Important Download Instructions

You need to have a free Adobe account and be logged into it to use the links below, as Adobe sets a session cookie on your browser that allows you to access the direct download links. Otherwise, you will receive an “access denied” or “resume your download” message prevent­ing the connection. So please follow these instructions carefully or the links will not work!

  1. Adobe recommends temporarily turning off any surfing restrictions you might have running, like site or cookie blocking, filtering, firewalls or antivirus software.
  2. Click «HERE» to visit this page first, before clicking any of the links below – this is critical!
  3. If asked, sign in with your Adobe ID or take a minute to create one for yourself.
  4. Now close any windows that popped up and cancel any downloads that started.
  5. OK! Now you’re logged in at Adobe with the trials cookie set, so you can instantly download any of the software below. Just make sure you have enough disk space.
  6. Download the files either by clicking directly on the DDL links, or by right-clicking and choosing “Save Link As…” on the popup menu – and save all files to the same place.
  7. Then follow the product installation instructions here.

Adobe Captivate 8 Direct Download Links

Adobe Captivate comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions…  64-bit offers higher perfor­mance but choose the 32-bit flavor if you’re unsure what your Windows computer is.

Captivate 8 – Windows 32-bit (1.2 GB):   File 1 File 2

Captivate 8 – Windows 64-bit (1.1 GB):   File 1 File 2

Captivate 8 – Downloadable Assets – Windows (1.4 GB):   File 1

Captivate 8 – NeoSpeech Text–to-Speech Voices – Windows (1.7 GB):   32-bit or 64-bit

Captivate 8 – Mac (1.6 GB):   File 1

Captivate 8 – Downloadable Assets – Mac (1.4 GB):   File 1

Captivate 8 – NeoSpeech Text–to-Speech Voices – Mac (1.7 GB):   Voices for Mac

See the complete system requirements for Captivate 8 to make sure your computer is ready before proceeding with installation.

You can easily convert a free 30-day trial installed on your computer to an unrestricted version by purchasing the software and entering the serial number.

Try using a browser other than Internet Explorer to download the files above. They can be quite large and IE has been known to drop the extension (like “.exe”) from the Windows filename. If this happens and you can’t open a file, then just rename it to add back the extension. But generally, using Firefox or Chrome will work better – and if you have any issues getting the downloads to work with one browser, then try another.

Seminars

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=list&loc=en_us&type=online_event&product=Captivate&interest=&audience=&monthyear=

Tutorials and Blog

http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/adobe-captivate-tutorials

Community

https://communities.adobe.com/en.html

Examples