We are pleased to announce that ActivePresenter 3.1 is now available.

With new features and lots of improvements, ActivePresenter 3.1 will help you be more productive when doing screen recording, creating software demos, making impresssive screencasts or SCORM-compliant elearning materials for corporate online training.

New features & Enhancements:

• Add context toolbars for faster and easier editing
• Add ‘preserve aspect ratio’ option for image and video
• Add ‘play when waiting for user input’ and ‘loop’ option for audio and video
• Show more details when hovering mouse over objects in editor
• Object Style:
  • Style Preview when editing
  • Clone style from existing one
  • Create new style from selected object
  • Update object to style
• Text Editing:
  • New hotkeys: increase/decrease font size
  • Auto Fit to Text: Auto expand/reduce object size once editing completes to fit to new text
  • Incremental search for font name in font selection box
• Quiz:
  • Make editing easier (add/edit answer, button, message…) using context toolbar
• Object Event:
  • Enable showing image by event
  • Add ‘End Presentation’ action
  • Add new action after, not previous selected action
• Timeline:
  • Preserve focused point (keep current view) when zooming
  • Ruler scale is now multiple of 10
• Audio Editor:
  • Preserve focused point (keep current view) when zooming
  • Ruler scale is now multiple of 10
  • Allow to seek when playing/pausing
• Properties Grid:
  • Auto save property value when user clicks outside properties panel
• Ajax, Flash Simulation:
  • Better synchronization among cursor path, audio, video, zoomed and normal objects
  • Flash Simulation: Add slide list window
• Capture/Record:
  • Auto pan is now off by default
  • Allow to add hint messages when recording
  • Allow to select captured application when inserting new slide by capture
  • Lower default video frame rate for FMR in Smart Capture to 15 fps -> Smaller video size, don’t need smooth transition
• Image Editor:
  • Allow to copy and paste image as image object into slide
  • Allow to select rectangle using mouse dragging from bottom to top

Bugs fixed:

• HTML editing issue: crash error when editing balloon’s text on systems with RoboForm installed
• Crash error when saving capture profile on systems with no audio input device

Download Now and give it a try!

What is SCORM?

Definition from Wikipedia:
SCORM is a collection of standards and specifications for web-based elearning. It defines communications between client side content and a host system called the run-time environment, which is commonly supported by a learning management system (LMS). SCORM also defines how content may be packaged into a transferable ZIP file called “Package Interchange Format”.

What does this mean?
For example, you have lessons/courses with text, image, audio… and you want to make it available as online elearning content. You also want to track your students/learners progress, score. How much percentage did they go? How much point did they get? What mistakes they usually made? Using SCORM you can quickly deploy elearning courses with all these features in 2 easy steps:

• Package the lesson in a zip file which is SCORM-compliant. SCORM defines how to do this .
• Upload this file to a modern LMS (most popular is Moodle). How LMS understands this file? How this file tells LMS about score, answers… SCORM defines how they communicate with each other.

Some authoring tools can help you from building elearning courses, defining scores, and packaging to SCORM-compliant content ready for publishing to any LMS with SCORM support.

What’s an SCO (Shareable Content Object)?

A SCO represents the lowest level of granularity of a learning resource that is tracked by an LMS. It can contain its own bookmark, score and completion status. A SCO may present a chapter, a page, or something else. SCO can be reused across multiple learning contexts.

Why Authoring SCORM-compliant courses is necessary for online elearning?

• SCORM defines the way for LMS manages courses automatically. It helps us save time and cost to manage the online elearning programs.
• An SCORM compliant package can work within any LMS which supports SCORM standards, so the content creators, authoring tools, and LMSs don’t need to know each other. SCORM compliant contents can be reused in different training situations and systems.
• SCORM is widely adopted by many organizations. The US Department of Defense mandated that all its elearning purchases must comply with SCORM standards. There are a lot of tools to create SCORM compliant contents and also many LMSs supporting SCORM standards.

Which SCORM version should be used?

• SCORM 1.1: This is the first production version. It is not popular used.
• SCORM 1.2: This was the first version that was widely used. It is still widely used and is supported by most LMSs today.
• SCORM 2004 1st: It resolved many ambiguities of previous versions, Sequencing and Navigation is added. Sequencing specification is not fully implemented and has some problems. This version is not usable.
• SCORM 2004 2nd: Defects in the 1st Edition are resolved. Adoption is not as wide as SCORM 1.2, to this point, but the number of LMS’s and content vendors supporting SCORM 2004 2nd is increasing greatly.
• SCORM 2004 3rd: Enhance existing and add some new conformance requirements in Sequencing specification to improve interoperability between content objects and the run-time environment. It has significant adoption like 2nd Edition.
• SCORM 2004 4th: More stringent interoperability requirements, more flexible data persistence. The new features in 4th Edition make creating sequenced content much simpler. It’s also widely used.

Depends on your content, using SCORM 1.2 may be good enough unless you want extra capabilities in SCORM 2004.

Have you decided to use SCORM in your teaching/training purposes? Do you want creating online computer skill tests, software tutorials or quizzes? It is good to start with ActivePresenter.

Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is a de facto standard which is supported by almost well-known Learning Management Systems (LMS) including Moodle. The most popular versions of this standard are SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 3rd. The LMS integration with SCORM is indispensable function for an elearning authoring tool. ActivePresenter, an interactive elearning authoring software is developed not only for fully support these standards but also to make the authoring process becomes easier and more professional. ActivePresenter 3.0 comes with a lot of features to fulfill this requirement including: quizzing, scoring with partial capabilities, resuming a lesson, customizable reporting id, timeout… This article will introduce to you several simple steps to successfully create SCORM-compliant courses and publish to Moodle LMS. It also shows how ActivePresenter output working within Moodle.

You can also watch this article in Flash Simulation

ActivePresenter allows tracking 3 types of interactions: mouse click, key press, and text editing and 7 quiz types. After inserting interactions, quizzes, annotations, and doing other make up tasks for project, for each interaction, we can change the Report ID in properties panel (of course, we can keep the default generated value). This allows us easier figure out when viewing the result on LMS. The Report ID in ActivePresenter only accepts alphanumeric and underscore (_) characters. The maximum length of Report ID is limited to 250. Please also make sure that the Show in Mode Test is checked.

Some quizzes contain multiple answers, each answer in a question is assigned a Report ID by ActivePresenter, normally is 1, 2, 3… You can also change these values for your convenience. For example, with bellow quiz, the Report IDs can be changed to whatever you want, like Mango, Coconut, Apple, and Grape…

The next step is setting score for each interaction or quiz. Double click on the object to open the Event Editor dialog. In the first tab of the dialog we can change the score for selected object. ActivePresenter supports partial scoring which enabling the flexibility when creating learning course. You can also add new answers or events, change time out… but we will explain about them in other articles. We are focusing on creating content which is SCORM compliant for uploading to LMS.

Once complete the editing, we are going to export the project to SCORM compliant package. ActivePresenter allows exporting to Interactive Flash and Interactive AJAX outputs which are very suitable for elearning. We can set the time limit for the test as in below image.

In the Advanced tab, we select the SCORM version for output package, it depend to the supported SCORM version of target LMS, the SCORM 2004 is a newer and better but may be not fully supported by some LMSs. Moodle supports both SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004. The other importance setting is the Pass Condition. It allows the package decides whether the learner pass this lesson or not. We can also set other information for the output package. Please note that all other reporting methods are disabled because the lesson will be managed by LMS.

Click export and open the output folder, it is the SCORM_PACKAGE folder in exported folder and upload the zip file to LMS. Here is some screenshots show how the package works within Moodle. From version 3.0, ActivePresenter reports the result with more details and support for lesson resuming, that is learners will automatically be redirected to exactly where he/she left off the last time.

ActivePresenter is not only a screen capture/recording software but more than that, it is a rapid elearning authoring tool for creating interactive and professional elearning courses and integrating with most popular LMSs through SCORM standard.

• Show others exactly how to do a given task or how to solve a problem on specific software
• Make step by step software tutorials, product presentations
• Record complete seminars and make them available to all attendees for future reference or share it with people who didn’t have time to attend live seminars.
• Show others your game playing experience

So you want to make screencasts?

To make a simple screencast is quite easy: you just need to record all the activity and your voice narration while performing on your computer screen. With growing demands and the rise of internet video sharing services like Youtube, Vimeo, Metacafe, Dailymotion… there are more and more tools that can help you make screencasts quickly.
However, most screencasting software can only record the computer screen to a video, some with limited editing functionalities and basic annotations, a few advanced tools with lots of features that might make you confusing at first glance. Some are free; some are commercial, some with reasonable price, and some with high price tag…
This makes it confusing and quite difficult to choose the right tool because most people don’t have enough patient and time to try every tool.
There are many articles or blog posts about things like “10 best screencasting tools”, “list of best screencasting tools”, “comparison of screencasting tools”, “screencasting tools comparison”, … However, most of them just try to list all screencasting software they know or heard, adding a screenshot and a short description of the software. You will still have to try all listed tools to find your favorite one.

Best screencasting software for specific purpose

Everyone has his own taste and it’s virtually impossible to choose a screencasting tool that suites everyone’s taste or needs.
From our experience in developing screencast authoring tool and making screencasts from short demonstration videos to complex screencasts with interactivity for elearning,
We think the best way is to narrow down your specific requirements and pick the most appropriate tool for each specific purpose.
When people are looking for screen recorder, screencasting software or rapid elearning authoring tool they are actually searching for a solution for their specific problem.
Some people just want to record their computer screen for a demonstration or providing visual guide to their family or friends on how to use a software feature, how to do a trick.
Some want to record their game playing to share or show off on Youtube, some want to create a demonstration or make video guide/manual for their wonderful software, some want to make engaging screencasts for their training session…

So don’t just choose a tool for every purpose! And keep in mind that there will never be something like “the best screencasting tool” or so.

How to choose the right tool for your screencasting?

Below are our recommendations:

You want to record a video of computer screen for sharing with others as fast as possible, editing is not necessary:

• Multiple platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux
• No installation required
• Simple and easy to use
• Fast uploading and easy sharing
• Record directly to MP4, AVI or FLV

• Low performance, adequate video quality: Low frame rate (fps), so the result is usually not so smooth for fast motion video/movie). This is obvious because of two main reasons:
  1. It is written in Java and must be run through JVM
  2. For fast sharing, they must record video directly to lossy video formats (AVI, MP4, FLV…) for better compression.
• Not suitable for editing: Record directly to lossy video formats so the quality will be lost with each saving, so the more editing the lower the quality.

Free edition limitations:

• Watermark
• 15 minutes max
• Webcam recording
• No editing tool for free version

Price: Free or $12 per year subscription for Pro edition.

2. Camstudio (Windows)

• Free open source software
• Can choose various codecs to encode recorded video based on your needs: You can encode in lossy (small file size) or lossless codecs (crystal clear video quality)
• Can record with quite high frame rate (fps), depends on chosen video codec

• Not updated for quite a long time, and may be not possible in the near future as they have no dedicated or active developers.
• Use AVI container so it suffers 2GB file size limitation (though you may tweak to overcome it)

Price: Free

3. Jing (Windows/Mac)

• Simple and easy to use.
• Fast uploading and easy sharing.

• Free version only allow maximum of 5-min recording and no webcam recording.
• No editing, no annotations/callouts

Price: Free or $15 per year for Pro edition.

For in-game or high frame rate (fps) recording:

1. Camstudio (Windows) with lossless codec
2. Fraps (Windows, $37)
3. Bandicam (Windows, $39)

For very long session recording:

1. Camstudio (Windows) with H.264, Xvid or vpx (WebM) codec

You want to make high quality video screencasts with annotations/callouts and editing capabilities:

1. ActivePresenter Free (Windows)

Unlike other alternatives, ActivePresenter does not record directly to video file.
After recording the screen capture session, ActivePresenter stores it as a series of slides and presents a feature-rich editor interface similar to PowerPoint, allowing full editing. Each slide can contain multiple images, video or audio. All slides may be re-arranged and audio overdub and editing is also built-in. External images including PowerPoint slides may be imported as well. The completed demonstration/screencast can be easily exported to a number of video formats.

• Automatically generate callouts of onscreen actions such as mouse clicks, key presses and other user input.
• Encode video using lossless codec: Crystal clear high video quality + high capture frame rate
• Rich editing functionalities: trim/cut video range, rich text format and style annotations/callouts, closed captioning, timeline editing, zooming and panning…
• Record audio to separate tracks
• Built-in audio editor
• Can insert multiple audio, video
• Can split into multiple slides for easy arranging/editing/updating
• Output to multiple video formats: AVI, WMV, MP4, WebM
• Easy to update later: This is crucial when you’re creating video guide or tutorials for your software
• Can record full motion video or separate slides for each mouse clicks or key presses

• Does not record directly to final video result so you have to export to desired video format after recording and editing
• No webcam recording

Price: Free

2. Camtasia Studio (Windows, Mac)

• Encode video using lossless codec: Crystal clear high video quality
• Rich editing functionalities
• Output to .mov, .wmv,.flv,.swf, .avi

• Low to middle capture rate so the quality is not very good for recording fast motion video
• Mac edition is not as feature rich and stable as the Windows edition

Price: $299

3. Screencast-o-Matic (Windows, Mac)
See above review.

4. ScreenFlow (Mac only)
Simple yet powerful features: 2D and 3D transitions, video and audio controls, callouts, effects and so on
Visit its website for more information. This is for Mac only.

You want to:

• Make professional screencasts which can engage users with interactivity
• Make SCORM-compliant screencasts for online elearning with branching scenarios or assessment of user responses

1. ActivePresenter Professional (Windows)
ActivePresenter is a solution for making interactive screencasts, rapidly authoring and maintaining interactive eLearning content.
See some demos to see what you can create with ActivePresenter.

• Automatically generate callouts of onscreen actions such as mouse clicks, key presses and other user input.
• Enrich your screencasts or elearning courses with voiceover, callouts, annotations, videos and graphics
• Make it interactive by adding application simulations, branching scenarios, and quizzes
• Easily publish to the web, desktops, mobile devices, and leading SCORM-compliant Learning Management Systems
• Track and report key metrics to evaluate learner performance
• Output to Flash and Ajax interactive elearning courses
• Output to various document formats: Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint, Adobe PDF
• Output to video: AVI, WMV, MP4, WebM, FlashVideo (FLV)

2. Adobe Captivate (Windows, Mac)

So now you can choose the best tool for your screencasting based on your specific purpose, happy screencasting!