by Debjani Roy
With the improvement of Flash technology, designers and developers are working hard to make Flash content more user-friendly for developing e-learning courses. Flash has in-built elements, enhanced features, and e-learning templates for making the courses more interactive and interesting for learners. An experienced Flash design professional has the required knowledge and skills for developing rich e-learning courses.
This article discusses how Flash can be used for developing rich and quality e-learning courses.
1. Flash Animation for Step-by-Step Instructions
E-learning courses can be designed by integrating simple step-by-step guidelines. This is done for the easy understanding of the course material. Your designer should use Flash animation to include step-by-step instructions. This will make the course more effective than using static images. Users will understand the course easily and quickly.
You can emphasize on specific segments with the use of animated pointers or arrows. It will make the learning objective much more effective and practical.
2. Engaging Course Navigation
The navigation of your e-learning course should be smart enough to engage users. Courses that are developed without using Flash are pretty dull and mechanical. With the use of Flash, these courses become more usable.
You can use Flash in AICC and SCORM courses. This way you can easily script your on-screen buttons using ActionScript. Consequently, ActionScript will be able to communicate with the LMS or Learning Management Systems. You can design a button the end of an e-learning lesson to send a ‘finish statement’ to the LMS. This will imply completion of the lesson, and asking for further actions. One other button can be used to show the results of the test or quiz.
With Flash, it is now possible to design interesting navigation features. Users have a quality learning experience as buttons can be easily designed using Flash, and the user-interface can be tailor-made.
3. Include Audio
Adding audio to e-learning courses is now easy as Flash supports most of the audio formats. Flash also plays the audio in the Flash Player. If you are developing an e-learning course, you can simply import an audio file, integrate it to the timeline, and use it in the Flash movie to deliver the lesson. This way your users will be able to listen to the audio without taking the pain to download an additional player.
Using Flash in such courses have others advantages as well. There are sound files that are not geared up to stream. If this happens, there are possibilities that some of the audio content might drop. However, Flash has in-built streaming abilities which ensure that the audio content will be ready for use without gaps or drop-outs.
4. Using Videos
Using videos can considerably improve the course content. There might be some issues with videos owing to the number of video players and formats. However, with the use of Flash technology, adding videos has become easier.
Now you have Flash CS3 which makes the process of integrating videos all the more easier. Therefore, you can make your e-learning course more enriched by deploying on the server. Since Flash has its individual video format, known as Flash Video or FLV, videos can be played by any SWF file without the necessity of downloading a player. Thus, the course will become more interactive, engaging and easy to understand.
5. Quiz Templates
Besides its in-built interactive features, Flash has attractive quiz templates. You simply navigate to File, then go to New, and in the Templates segment, choose Quiz.
With Flash, you have the liberty to make any alterations to the Quiz segment and pick out the result options. You can choose the learning interactions as per your requirement. Say for instance, if you require a set of multiple-choice questions, you simply have to copy and paste the frame for the questions, and alter it as per your requirement.
If you intend to give your e-learning course more dynamism, then it is Flash that will help to enrich the learning experience of users. Using Flash will make students to see the course material, including video and audio, without having to download an extra player. You can consider the above tips for making your e-learning course more gripping!
About the author
Flash website design a, a reputed Flash design solutions provider in India, offers dynamic and customized Flash design services to clients in India and across the world. The company has authored numerous articles on flash header design,Flash website design,flash map,flash banner design and flash animated presentation.
