Unimpressed with Adobe Captivate

Unimpressed with Adobe Captivate

by cyber sec -
Number of replies: 5

I am surprised this tool is so popular.

It has some great features. But, IMO, it's overpriced, difficult to use, slow, and breaks often.

It seems to me that much of what can be done in Captivate can be done for less cost (often free), and often better with other tools. Some of those tools would include: OpenShot, Screencast-O-Matic, H5P, and Moodle with the right plugins.

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In reply to cyber sec

Re: Unimpressed with Adobe Captivate

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers
Hi cyber sec,

Agreed! smile

AFAIK - I haven't used it for a long time - Captivate was primarily for generating SCORM packages, in the days when interoperable "Learning Objects" was the latest buzzword & multimedia & interactivity = Adobe Flash. As you've said, the learning interaction authoring, management, & integration tool landscape has changed dramatically since then. H5P in particular is a strong competitor for SCORM & simpler, easier to use & less prone to LMS compatibility issues (SCORM implementation variability/inconsistency). Then there's the fact that it's FOSS community driven so that individuals, organisations & institutions can commission &/or contribute to adding & maintaining features & functions that then benefit the whole H5P community.

Moodle Quiz module also has some not so well known benefits, e.g. the built in item analysis tools, which help curriculum developers evaluate test items for their facility, reliability & distractor efficiency (bivariate coefficient analyses), that facilitate continuous improvement in assessment practices.

Just my €0.02!
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: Unimpressed with Adobe Captivate

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
In my rather bitter very out of date experience, it can provide a nice looking experience. After that there are better tools in most areas. In my experience SCORM (its main target) is just reliable enough for you to spend a lot of time creating content before a slow realisation it is not reliable enough even for low stakes assessment.

But as I say that was a long time ago, since then it might have become excellent and solve everyones problems.
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In reply to cyber sec

Re: Unimpressed with Adobe Captivate

by Richard Jones -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
IMO Articulate has better tools both for rapid development (Rise 360) and interactivity (Storyline) but AFAIK it costs about the same as the Adobe product. They are very easy to use and to learn and the export can be in a range of formats including SCORM and its variants.

SCORM plus Moodle is a reasonably attractive option for many of the small training outfits I have worked with. After all, they do work in many LMS's not just Moodle and can work with roll-your-own solutions using learning record stores. I don't know that there is a completely Open Source solution in this area just yet but it would be nice.

I've seen that H5P is getting better all the time, I must look again and maybe do another comparison. Free tools such as eXe eLearning, Xerte and others don't do a great job at producing SCORM's.

My NZD 0.02.
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In reply to cyber sec

Re: Unimpressed with Adobe Captivate

by Melanie Scott -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
You guys all gave me a great laugh. Yes, Captivate is not awesome. I use it. All the time. And I don't love it. There are a couple things it does well. But none of them are things no other product can do. I love Lectora. I've seen a bit of Articulate products and they are cool. H5P is cool (but no reporting--of course, Captivate reporting on SCORM is hit or miss, though better than 10 years ago). Captivate is just aggravating. And you have no control over variables or what is being reported. I could go on but I'll stop. really...stopping now.
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