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Try this computer-based Exc-el training

David's Exc-el blog

David Gilmour

Sunday 07 May 2006

New members of the Exc-el community usually get a "first steps" guide by email to get them started. But there's no doubt it's much better if you can sit with them and show them what's involved. Also, showing people what's involved often seems to overcome any fear that it might be difficult.

This week I found out about Wink (see earlier blogs), and have used it to start work on a prototype computer-based training thingy (using Flash animation) to show what's involved in creating a blog entry. Current work-in-progress file is at http://www.exc-el.org.uk/cbt/Creating_a_blog.htm . (Temporary link, may be removed) I'd appreciate your feedback. Does this look helpful? What changes would you make? Could it be improved? This one's 12MB in size, so is only viable if you've got decent broadband. I'm thinking a lite version might be good for people on dial-up - or having to suffer school-style internet access...

Comments

Wink - file size

David

Saturday 20 May 2006

Thanks Walter. You're right about this one; it's far too big.

I've since realised that I can cut the file size substantially. This first one was created using the default 4 frames per second screen capture. The best thing to do seems to be to use that to capture the essentials, but then hack out the redundant frames. This produces a much smaller file size, with no loss in usefulness.

My next attempt (http://www.exc-el.org.uk/cbt/using_an_exc-el_forum.htm) was done using that approach. It's only 2.5MB, not 12MB for a similar purpose. Is this more like the thing, do you think? By my calc, that should load in about a minute on a typical dial-up link (2 500 000 bits / 40 000 bit/sec = 62.5sec). And I'm sure I could improve on that... perhaps by making the image size smaller, say 640x480... It's time for another experiment, I think!

Wink

Walter Patterson

Tuesday 16 May 2006

David - download is way way too big to be useful for training. Have a look at Atomic Learning where tutorials are around 60 secs long and download pretty quickly (and have audio as well). I do like this form of training so persevere! And keep up the good work on this blog!

On- Line guide

Don