This one-day course teaches participants the basics of RoboDemo, and explains the process that professional technical communicators use to design software recordings. Course members will explore the authoring environment of RoboDemo, and participate in hands-on training by creating actual interactive Flash simulations. Participants will learn how to make software recordings interactive and how to control the timing of movies. With RoboDemo, viewers will feel like they are interacting with a real, live application. After completing the RoboDemo training course, participants will also be able to use RoboDemo’s quizzing feature to make software simulations respond dynamically to user interactions.

Course Outline

Unit 1: Introduction
Module 1 - Course Overview
Module 2 - Planning a RoboDemo Movie
Describing the Structure of a Tutorial
Communicating the Message
Describing RoboDemo
Planning Your Movies
Using the Systematic Approach
Analyzing Your Audience, Resources, & Constraints
Designing a Prototype
Developing Your Movie
Implementing Your Movie
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Your Movie
What You Have Learned

Unit 2 “Show Me” Project
Module 3 - Manually Recording a Simulation
Describing Your Movie Assignments
Describing the Working Environment
Previewing a Movie
Manually Recording a New Movie
Practice
What You Have Learned

Module 4 - Working with Captions
Describing Captions
Inserting a Caption
Changing Caption Properties
Practice
Changing the Display Order of Your Captions
Accessing Frames
Practice
What You Have Learned

Module 5 - Working with Images and Objects
Inserting Images
Setting Image Properties
Setting Object Transitions
Practice
Working with Image Stacks
Practice
Merging Images
Labeling Frames
What You Have Learned
Project Completion

Unit 3 "Let Me Try" Project
Module 6 - AutoRecording a Simulation
Recording a New Movie Using Auto Recording
Automatically Generating Captions
Editing Captions
Practice
Setting Movie Preferences
Practice
What You Have Learned

Module 7 - Adding Basic Interactivity
Adding Click Boxes
Adding Animations
Practice
Attaching Click Boxes
Adding Highlight Boxes
Practice
Attaching Highlight Boxes
Adjusting Frame Timing
Practice
What You Have Learned

Module 8 - Adding Rollovers
Rollover Captions
Rollover Images
Checking the Spelling of Your Project
Exporting

Unit 4 "Test Me" Project
Module 9 - Adding Advanced Interactivity
Developing an eLearning Movie
Opening an Existing Movie
Inserting a Button
Attaching Objects
Adding Text Entry Boxes
Practice
What You Have Learned

Module 10 - Adding Quiz Frames
Describing Quiz Frames
Practice
Branching
Creating a Manifest File
What You Have Learned

Module 11 - Adding Animation
Creating a Text Animation Frame
Practice
What You Have Learned
Project Completion

Unit 5 Final Project
Module 12 - Adding Audio
Resizing an Existing Movie
Practice
Describing Audio Features
Recording Audio
Adding Background Audio
What You Have Learned

Module 13 - Importing Additional Content
Importing PowerPoint Frames
Practice
Importing RoboDemo Frames
Understanding the Bandwidth Monitor
What You Have Learned

Module 14 - Exporting Your Movies
Exporting Movies
Setting Movie Attributes
Using Playback Controls
Setting How a Movie Starts and Ends
Exporting a Movie as a .swf (Flash file)
Practice
Backing Up Your Movie
What You Have Learned

Module 15 - Creating Hyperlinks
Describing Hyperlinks
Linking a Movie to a Web Site
Practice
Linking to Other Movies
Using the MenuBuilder
Practice
What You Have Learned
Project Completion
Class Completion