How to PowerPoint

Most software tutorials are built using screenshots of the application or using a screencast video like those from Screenr. 

What’s cool about PowerPoint is that you can combine those techniques to create your software demos.  Or you can just build it in PowerPoint without the screencasting application.

In the post, Here Are Some Time Saving Tips for Your Next Software Demo, I wrote for the Rapid E-Learning Blog, I showed some ways that PowerPoint can be effective as an authoring tool for software demos.  You can even make them interactive, which you can see on that post.

Compared to older versions, PowerPoint 2007 makes this even more viable because you can easily right-click and swap out images.  Thus if the application’s screen changes after building your demo, it’s just a matter of right-clicking and inserting the updated images.  All of the interactivity and animations will still be intact.

Having produced hundreds of screencasts and software courses, I can tell you that PowerPoint is a very effective tool for software training.  Is it the best tool? Not always.  But for a lot of software training, it’s a good tool.  And in many cases a lot faster and easier to work with than a screencast video that requires more production (and usually a lot more editing).

Check out the blog post on the Rapid E-Learning Blog to learn more.  Be sure to watch the demo and try the interaction on the last slide.

I did a post for the Rapid E-Learning Blog where I demonstrated a simple elearning scenario.  I got a lot of emails asking how it was built. 

So I did a follow up post where I show how I actually built the elearning scenario using PowerPoint and Articulate Presenter ‘09.

View the Tutorial and Download the Free PowerPoint Files

If you use PowerPoint for elearning and you want to learn to make your courses more interactive, then you’ll get a lot of value out of the link above an this one on How I Built that E-Learning Scenario. 

Not only is there a good tutorial that goes with it, I also included the PowerPoint files so you can deconstruct how the scenario was built on your own.

PowerPoint is a great authoring tool for elearning.  It’s easy to use and combined with a rapid elearning tool you can publish your courses quickly.  If you don’t have a Flash programmer on staff (OR want to save time and money) it’s a great way to go.  I did a presentation a while back where I outlined my elearning strategy.

Click here to view the presentation on elearning strategy.

One of the challenges, though is that many people who use PowerPoint for elearning end up creating very static and linear course.  In some cases, this is fine.  But, as a matter of practice it’s best to make your elearning courses more engaging and interactive. 

If you do want more interactivity, check out the Rapid E-Learning Blog’s post on  How to Add Scenarios to Your Rapid E-Learning Courses…Rapidly!

Click here to see one of the examples.

There are some great examples and a tutorial that walks you through the steps. so that you can build your own interactive elearning scenarios.