Using Adobe Captivate to Create Interactive Tutorials

Reference and instruction librarians are always looking for new and innovative ways of delivering content to users. The objective is to create a new generation of user guides and instructional materials to develop the information literacy skills of our users.

There are many benefits to using streaming media in education. It is more engaging and interactive for students than the common static print guide or web page. Other benefits include:

• Students show dramatic improvements in achievement when targeted streaming video is used;

• Students may view Captivate tutorials an unlimited number of times, at any time of day, seven days a week. This is aprticularly helpful to slower learners;

• Captivate tutorials may be indexed into parts, and they can be watched and re-watched as often as desired.

User Education Services invites you to review the Captivate Training Manual linked below and learn how to use Adobe Captivate to produce meaningful learning objects for users. The following sample tutorial was created to demonstrate the capabilities of this software for instruction:

Libraries' Homepage Tutorial [2.5 minutes]

Catalog: Basic Search [3 minutes]

Research Port [3.5 minutes]

Interlibrary Loan [3.5 minutes]

Finding Items in the Libraries' Collection

Identifying Periodicals

Boolean Logic

MLA Style

Google Scholar

Evaluating Information Sources

Other libraries that have developed user materials using these applications:

Enoch Pratt Free Library

MIT Libraries Video Tutorials

Stanford University

University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign - University Library

Web-based tutorials created by the University of Maryland:

ELMS Animated Tutorials for Instructors