Microlearning is on the tip of a lot of people’s tongues at the moment and many groups are developing eLearning with a mobile focus. As we approach training with the lens of microlearning, should we use continue to use the same tools?
Our team challenged ourselves with this question recently. I have worked with authoring tools that come close to Articulate StoryLine but I’ve always felt like they don’t have all of the functionality needed to really build an eLearning course the way StoryLine does. It turns out that StoryLine has a few minor limitations when it comes to mobile-friendliness and our team decided to evaluate a tool with which I wasn’t very familiar.
What is iSpring
iSpring is a plug-in for PowerPoint that turns slideshows into interactive eLearning. I’ll be honest, I was a little put off by this description at first until I considered that is basically how many people use StoryLine. When approaching single objective courses primarily to be delivered over mobile with quick interactions, this was all we really need.
iSpring has a free version which our team evaluated and find easy to use and can create courses with a similar look and feel of a StoryLine course. Development is much easier, especially if you are comfortable in PowerPoint, and it exports well SCORM or HTML5. Upon purchasing the full license, we found even more functionality to build very professional looking and engaging courses.
JavaScript and Complex Interactions
There are situations where eLearning courses need to be more complicated than basic interaction and StoryLine or even HTML5 development may be necessary. As far as I can tell, iSpring isn’t a great solution for these situations. This is why I don’t think StoryLine will ever be replaced, but eLearning teams need to remain nimble and up to date on all tools available. You don’t need to replace a tool just because you are learning another. iSpring met the needs for a recent project of ours, and it is really easy to use. I will continue to use it and look for more tools to add to our box.
My biggest take away is to not limit the way you approach training. There are amazing new tools being developed every day. We become comfortable in one and feel it is the only approach or are afraid to change because of learning curves. This is a risk and stifles potential. Why risk the world passing you by?
