Gone in a Flash
Flashing lights, music, images fading in and out, talking heads, spinning logos… How much is too much? Well, I personally think it depends on how well it complements the content, and if the content is of high instructional design quality.
There are 3 categories I am speaking of in this article: animations, transitions, and sound effects. I’ve broken down the examples for each below:
Animations: Moving objects, animated intros, on-click animations with images, animated activities, such as Flash Cards or Jeopardy games.
Transitions: slide/page transitions with effects such as Blinds, Wipe, Fade, etc….
Sound effects: a Whoosh or Chime sound as each slide appears or a sound effect when a text box or image is activated (rolled over or clicked). Oh, and don’t forget music and music stingers.
So how much is too much? Well, I definitely have personal development guidelines on these items. Not only do I keep intros at the beginning only of modules, but I limit animations to approx. every 10 slides. I also limit transitions to a few for every 50-slide module. As far as sound effects, I would never use a sound effect on every slide. I did one time use a whoosh sound for all Knowledge Check activities within the module. There were 10, out of a total of 60 slides.
I do also use sound effects to enhance very specific interactions. For example, when I created an interactivity for the learner to click the power button on an old-style movie projector to display the text on the projector screen, I used a sound effect of an old projector running for about 5 seconds and then faded it out. I like to use Audacity (a free tool) for touching up audio.
Music is great for the intro, and a 6 second stinger is great for transitioning to a new topic. Again, in moderation is the key.
Here is my golden rule for Flash. If it is distracting from the content and I myself am getting agitated during the review and QA stage, it is too much. Flash should enhance the content and not cover it up. Every 10 slides is a good rule of thumb.
When all is said and done, if you are on the client side and not the learner side and are searching for an e-Learning vendor, remember this, Flash is over in the blink of an eye, but content stays forever. You should be paying for quality content that stays with the learner and gives you RESULTS in the end. Until next time…
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Finding the Best Flash Designer’s Guide
Finding the perfect learning tool for Flash is a daunting task to any novice web developer. One can find help in a number of ways through books, friends and private tutors. These methods are great but not often readily available, nor cheap! The best and cheapest way to learn anything from the basics of flash to the secrets of the trade is a Flash Tutorial. Think of the Flash Tutorial as a mini lesson that teaches a specific part of the flash. Flash Tutorials come in many levels of difficulty and quality. Developers don't publish their tutorials according to an established curriculum, they simple publish whatever they please or think will be useful. That makes finding the correct Flash Tutorial difficult. Many times the tutorial is too vague and the information is difficult to understand. Conversely, the concepts could be easy to understand but entirely useless in the real world. If a person will examine the quality of the tutorial before they work through it, they will be able to avoid a lot of unnecessary frustration. When selecting a Flash Tutorial, look for these three criteria: examples, clarity, and usefulness. Examples When looking for a Flash Tutorial, be sure that it has examples to go with it. Examples are actual snippets of code that actually demonstrate the principles taught in the tutorial. If the source code is downloadable as an example file for you to look at and run, that is even better. Look for examples that are easy to follow and demonstrate clearly the principle being taught. There is nothing more frustrating than finding the perfect tutorial and not having the perfect example to work from.Clarity Find Flash Tutorials that are clear and easy to understand. If a flash dictionary is needed, then the tutorial is not worth your time. Tutorials should be written clearly and concisely. It is best when the author has put links to the definition of, or clarifies a difficult word. Generally, it is also helpful when the tutorial has visuals. That being said, not all visuals are effective. The visuals should clarify and not confuse.Usefulness Above all tutorials should be useful. They should teach things that can actually be used. It is great when the tutorial teaches how to effectively use the feature in a real-life situation. A good Flash Tutorial will be adaptable. The user should be able to take the examples and adapt them to their application without having to entirely redo the process. Finally, the tutorial should teach the entire concept. This can be in one lesson or in many lessons, but it should teach everything the user needs to know to implement that concept. When looking for tutorials remember that it must have example, it must be clear and it must be useful. If you're a basic user start searching for "Basic Flash Tutorials". As you get more advanced, search for specific topics such as character creation or Flash shape tweening. Remember, the first tutorial that comes up on the search isn't always the best. They have to be sifted through until the really good ones are found.
 | US $49.87 End Date: Monday Mar-22-2010 13:53:00 PDT Buy It Now for only: US $49.87 Buy it now | Add to watch list |
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Mac Video to flash converter, make web page embedded flash video on mac
The Christmas and New Year holiday is around the corner, you must be thinking about how to decorate your web or blog or how to promote your products in your home page to attract more consumers. A web with only pictures and text is boring and without attraction. But thing is different, if you insert videos in your site or blog.
However, there is a headache problem that encoding web video(flash video) needs professional programming knowledge and inserting flash video in site is also not a easy thing. Don't despair! Video to flash converter for mac comes at this right time. It can not only convert any video formats to flash FLV/SWF video, but also generate a html page embedded with flash video so that you can embed video in your site with a few mouse clicks.The following tutorial will step by step show you how to create web video.Step1. Launch video to flash converter for macAfter download and install video to flash converter for mac, double-click the icon to launch it. Its interface is easy-to-use and friendly, like this:Setp2. Add video for creating web videoClick the "Add Video" button on the top of interface, and in the opened directory, navigate to the video folder, choose all videos you want to convert. It supports batch import so you can add as many videos as you wish.Step3. Edit your videos1.Cropping video filesClick "Edit" button on the below to open video edit window, and crop the video clips by dragging the crop frame on the left video player by moving the mouse cursor. 2.Adding effectIn the video edit window, hit "Effect" button and adjust video effects, such as video Brightness, Contrast, Saturation by dragging the adjusting sliders separately. There are two real-time preview windows for you to compare before-effect video with after-effect video.Step4. Select html page as the output formatClick the second button on the top("Customize"), then click "Next" and select "Select SWF-->embed the video in SWF and play in timeline" or "Select SWF-->Play the created external FLV file progressively", and then tick "Generate HTML".Note: The "Generate HTML" button is valid only when you choose "Select SWF-->embed the video in SWF and play in timeline" or "Select SWF-->Play the created external FLV file progressively".Step5. Start video to html page conversionAfter finish the above work, hit "Start " button on the below to start the video to html page conversion. The process is fast and steady. Next: Convert Video to SWF/FLV/Animation on Mac OSX.
| US $49.87 End Date: Monday Mar-22-2010 13:53:00 PDT Buy It Now for only: US $49.87 Buy it now | Add to watch list |
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