Here is the list of the top five lesser-known e-learning tools that readers said they wanted to know more about. For four of these tools, I’ve provided a short review of the features and a bar graph showing my rating of the tool’s power and ease of use. (Since Articulate Online is an LMS and fundamentally not the same kind of tool as the other four, rating it for power and ease of use wasn’t appropriate.)
- Articulate Online by Articulate
- e-Learning Authoring Tool by e-Learning Consulting
- nimbleAuthor (was eLearning Course Builder) by eLearning24/7
- FlexAuthoring by FlexTraining
- Udutu Online Course Authoring by Udutu Online Learning Solutions
1) Articulate Online
Articulate Online complements both Articulate Storyline and Articulate Studio; Studio includes Presenter, Quizmaker, and Engage. It takes the place of a learning management system and works only with Articulate tools to gather the data from learner sessions, data that you can then use to generate reports within Articulate Online.
The data you can view range from an individual’s response to a specific question up to discovering group trends for specific questions. You can give learners access to their personal histories so they can generate their own reports. You can organize learners into different groups (create your own if you like) and assign different permission levels to each group.
I find all the interfaces easy to understand and to use. All that data your learners generate need not stay trapped within Articulate Online because there are options to export to CSV (comma delimited files, easy to import into Microsoft Excel) or to XML files, and finally to PDF files as well.
Most learning management systems are very expensive, but Articulate Online ranges from $199 a month for up to 50 users, up to $499 a month for 500 users. You can cancel at any time. Learn more at http://www.articulate.com/products/ao-plans.php.
2) e-Learning Authoring Tool, from e-Learning Consulting
This tool’s name couldn’t be more generic, and the tool itself is easy to use. It does not have a ton of features. The interface uses a tree view menu to create pages and uses mostly dialog boxes for you to lay out Pages, Quizzes, and Tests. Figure 1 shows the types of pages you can create.
Figure 1: eLearning Authoring Tool’s page choices
You can choose to have learners freely navigate to the next page or be forced to visit, complete, or pass the current page (assuming it’s a question). The learner can use the tree view to jump to any page and you can have standard Previous and Next buttons, along with options for Glossary, Resources, Help, and Close or Open Menu.
You can also provide a Progress button that will let learners pop up a window at any time to see what they have accomplished and what they have left to do.
The editor uses ribbons along the top, now familiar to anyone who has used Office applications in the last few years. It contains an HTML editor and you can create cascading style sheets as well.
The tool is installed on your hard drive and the courses you create with it will work with SCORM. It publishes to HTML/DHTML.
The regular retail price for e-Learning Authoring Tool is $799. See more at http://www.e-learningconsulting.com/products/authoring/authoring.html.
Rating for e-Learning Authoring Tool:
3) nimbleAuthor by eLearning247
This tool was originally called eLearning Course Builder but now has the less generic (and niftier) name nimbleAuthor, probably to avoid confusion with Adobe Dreamweaver Course Builder extensions and with Google Course Builder (now called Open edX).
nimbleAuthor also uses the page metaphor—when you add a new page you are given a choice of 10 page templates, as seen in Figure 2. They include presentation, interaction, question pages, and a blank page so that you can construct your own.
Figure 2: nimbleAuthor provides 10 page templates
When you edit a template page or start with a blank one, you have the flexibility of adding different content types by clicking an Add button and moving objects around after clicking a Drag button. There are also branding options that let you change more global aspects of your lesson. You can also add an Assessment at the end of your lesson.
The tool is cloud-based and publishes to SCORM 1.2. However it does appear that you are highly encouraged to couple nimbleAuthor with nimbleLMS. As a cloud-based tool, nimbleAuthor fits right into nimbleLMS. A library of royalty-free images is included and all courses work across desktops and mobile devices.
eLearning247 is an English vendor, so its pricing is in pounds sterling. If you wish to use nimbleAuthor separately and deploy resulting courses into your own SCORM 1.2 LMS, the cost is £850.00 a year. If you use nimbleLMS along with nimbleAuthor, the cost is a per-learner registration. Check out the tool and the payment options at www.elearning247.com.
Rating for nimbleAuthor:
4) FlexAuthoring by FlexTraining
FlexAuthoring is a cloud-based tool (part of the “Total e-Learning Solution”) that lets you build lessons that contain what are called Learning Screens. Each Learning Screen is based on a template, and you can add text, audio, video, etc. In any case, you are not working in a WYSWIG environment here.
Rather, you fill in dialogs to load each screen element. Tests are set up the same way. You add questions and answers to tests through wizard-like dialogs. It works directly with the FlexTraining LMS, therefore everything is integrated and you do not use your own LMS. (People usually call this combination an LCMS.)
You can sign up for a trial, but it will cost you $500 to do so, though it is reimbursed if you sign up for a full license. A full license starts at $495 per month using the self-service kit provided, which will let you deliver an unlimited number of courses to a maximum of 100 students. You will have to contact the company to obtain license pricing for 250, 1000, 5000, or unlimited students. See more at http://www.flextraining.com/.
Rating for FlexTraining:
5) Udutu Online Course Authoring, by Udutu Online Learning Solutions
Udutu Online Course Authoring is a completely free online authoring tool that uses a WYSIWYG environment. Udutu is a services company and so also has its own LMS (called Udutu Guru) and other services to which you can purchase licenses. The tool itself, though, is not limited to the Udutu LMS. You can export your courses and host them on your own server or in your LMS, publish to Udutu’s Facebook page at no cost, and more.
The tool itself uses a metaphor of folders and screens. Each folder is a group that is flexible in nature. You can call it a topic, module, chapter, or anything else you like. The folders can be expanded and collapsed and form a tree view on the left. A screen can be one of several basic layouts, such as text and/or image combinations, a more-info slide, or a short PDF document.
You can also create assessment screens, and these include several types: multiple choice, match labels to images, order the steps, drag and drop, what’s wrong with the picture, phrase matching, order images, and more.
There are also advanced screen types, which include slide shows, rollovers, animated lists, and others.
Most of the screen types are compatible with mobile devices, though some won’t work on iPads (you’ll be told which).
Media can include most types you need, including different image, audio, animation, and video formats.
Several scenario templates are provided, which I think is pretty cool, especially for a free tool. (Figure 3)
Figure 3: Course template categories in Udutu
In short, Udutu offers a pretty impressive cloud-based tool that is free to use. See more at http://www.udutu.com/solutions_udutu.html.
Rating for Udutu Online Course Authoring:
Reprinted from Learning Solutions magazine
