The eLearning Programmer’s Toolbox: Choosing the Right Tool

Programming eLearning is often the easy part of the project.  Determining which tool or tools to use however, could make or break your project. Could the tool do what the client wanted? Did the programmer have the correct skill set to use that tool?  Today I gave a webinar, sponsored by mLearningDevCon  where I walked through a unique process flow using criteria such as 

1. Client requirements,
2.  Tools in your toolbox, 
3. Employee skill sets with tools, 
4. Project budget and time constraints. 

Combining these inputs into the process flow will provide you with the ability to choose the right tool – or tools to be successful with your project. 

Select this link to get a zip file (16MB) of the presentation and spreadsheets covered in the webinar.

Select this link to download a zip file (58MB) containing the webinar in wmv format.

How to Replace the Master Page in SmartBuilder

I recently found myself in a situation where I needed to update the Master Page on 5 different lessons.  Through client revisions and added functionality, the original Master Page had evolved a great deal. I was frustrated to learn that although you can copy entire pages via the Page Sequence List (Edit/Page Sequence from the Authoring Stage), the Master Page is not included in this functionality. Faced with the prospect of recreating all of the actions in the Master Page across all 5 lessons I decided to search for a more efficient solution to no avail. My search was not completely fruitless as I did turn up a few capabilities that when combined can produce the same effect.

7 steps to Replacing your Master Page

1. Open your lesson and save a copy.
   
2. In your new saved copy, open the Page Sequence dialog and delete all of the pages in your lesson. (You will need to be viewing the Master Page to accomplish this as SmartBuilder will not allow you to delete a page you are currently viewing)
   
3. Save this cleaned out lesson as a template
   
   
   
   
   
4. Publish your new template. (found in My Content / Work in Progress /Templates) This will place your template in My Published Content / Templates allowing you to apply this template to a lesson.
   
   
   
5. Open your lesson that needs the Master Page replaced, choose to view/edit the Master Page. On the Authoring Stage, press CTRL A (select all) and then Delete.
   
   
6. Delete your Actions.  If you view your Action list you will see that all of the actions are now colored red.  This is because all of the objects these items were tied to have been deleted. Delete all of these Actions.
   
   
   
7. The final step is to apply your saved template to your now cleaned out Master Page. From the Design Tab in the Template Pane, (on the bottom right) click on Apply Template. Locate and select your template in the Select Template dialog box.
   
   

You have now replaced your Master Page!  To apply this method to additional lessons simply repeat steps 5-7 on the desired lessons.

Know of an easier process?  I would love to hear it!