E-Learning Authoring Tools – Blackboards of the Future?

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Remember that old, dusty blackboard that your teachers used to write on with colorful chalks that made you sneeze? It got replaced by a white board, with a black marker that you can magically erase. Just a few years ago, a teacher whips out new acetates to show images or graphs to further illustrate a point. The next year, you’re awed at the PowerPoint presentation your professor prepared; it contains animations and moving graphics you thought you’d only see on TV or in that newly-invented Internet that contained a handful of websites. There are schools that still use these educational tools but they are all the predecessors of today’s e learning authoring tools.

Authoring tools are also known as authorware. They are special programs designed not for computer programmers, although they can certainly use it, but for educators to enrich their elearning or classroom experience. The program can create customized multimedia applications including graphics, audio and video that can be synched and sequenced to follow the lectures provided by the teacher. The easiest kind of tool is the rapid authorware. And the most commonly used rapid authorware is the PowerPoint, created by Microsoft.

Authoring tools can be classified in many ways. For this article, let’s classify them by availability. Open source authoring tools can be found all over the Internet. One of the most praised elearning applications online is the Moodle, but rapid e learning authoring tools are also available:

CourseLab

The program provides an easy WYSISYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment for educators who are not tech-savvy. It even includes an LMS (Learning Management Systems) for administrators and educators. The end product can be published in the Internet of burned in CD-ROMs.

CamStudio

Camstudio is a free screen capture program that also records audio. Screen capture is an essential tool especially for learning software applications like PhotoShop. Another key feature is the available format of the video which includes industry standatd, AVI and SWFs for streaming.

Xerte

For more intermediate to advanced educators, Xerte contains a suite of tools for creating interactive e learning courses. Depending on your creativity and tech-savvy, you can create sophisticated elements on your ecourse that you won’t be able to do on ordinary rapid share tools like PowerPoint.

LAMS

The free program is brought to you by LAMS Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to research and development in learning. Learning activities are easily designed by teachers through an intuitive authoring environment.

Audacity

Audacity is an open source audio recording and editing program. Useful for webinars and elearning videos, audio is a key element in creating successful elearning courses.

Paid e learning authoring tools abound the web, of course. And as expected they contain more comprehensive features and more dynamic elements.

Articulate

Their new Articulate Rapid E-Learning Studio ’09 contains interactive content, assessment tools like quizzes, exams, and surveys for non-tech savvy educators. The price for all four programs: Presenter, Quizmaker, Engage, and Video Encoder cost around $1000.

Adobe

The name trusted in graphics and photo editing software came out with Adobe eLearning Suite 2 which contains nine programs: Captivate 5, Flash Professional CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Photoshop CS5 Extended, Acrobat 9 Pro, Presenter 7, Soundbooth CS5, Bridge CS5, and Device Central CS5. The whole solution costs $1,799.

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Source by Joel Owens