It’s been a while since I did any type of product review with an authoring tool, which I know is called Content Creator.
Storyline has been, openly admitting here, one of the products I have written about.
Storyline 2 when it rolled out, and Storyline when it debuted.
Why my focus on Storyline?
This is due to its popularity and the number of clients whose level of loyalty and belief that it is the best boarders in fandom.
That’s fine.
There are levels of loyalty with buyers of Lectora and ditto with Adobe Captivate.
However, that legion of supporters does not achieve the level of fandom by any standard as Articulate’s users.
For this product review, I focused specifically on what Articulate’s AI tool says about people who wish to use Rise instead of Storyline.
“Articulate Rise is ideal for creating responsive, visually appealing courses quickly, especially when the content is straightforward and requires minimal customization.”
And a latter point, “minimal effort.”
Thus, ease of use – quickly pushing it out, seems to be the message here. Because intricate immersive, let alone what I see as a stronger engagement – and therefore engaging for your learners, is via Storyline.
From my own experience with Rise, I did not come away with any level of engagement that screamed, this is fun and I can learn too.”
This Product Review is broken into two parts.
Part one starts at the beginning, from the dashboard to editing a course, starting with the AI block and specifically using the prompt window.
Part two (posted tomorrow on 5-7) covers the scenarios, characters, and loose ends from the window.
Including Articulate’s own AI tool saying one thing and then contradicting itself a short time later.
I will explain why this is relevant. It is due to how Articulate sees its role in folks creating content with Articulate’s AI offering (it is from OpenAI – the LLM).
Rise 360
This is the content creator piece of the Articulate 360 offering.
Key items to Remember
Articulate are not the new kids on the block. They have been around for a long, long, long time.
Why is this relevant?
- They know that micro-learning isn’t a new concept – it’s been around for a long time
- That micro-learning only means short; it doesn’t mean good or better
- You can create a course that is short, and thus, in reality, there isn’t any difference between a course and, say, one that is noted as micro-learning.
If, for argument’s sake, Articulate has no idea on the above, then they shouldn’t be selling any type of authoring tool.
However, that Studio product back in the day followed a similar premise of Rise, build it quickly, without any instructional design knowledge, fast and easy.
The easy part though with Rise isn’t a clear – even its AI in the product says the same thing, contradicting itself along the way.
The Home Screen
This gets slightly confusing, at least the first time around.
The dashboard, which notes Rise 360, below Articulate 360.
To see the Rise, you have to click on Rise 360 (there are other options including Review 360).
The initial dashboard, “Articulate 360,” shows that if someone is looking for Storyline360, they need to download the app.
However, the initial confusion comes from the standpoint that on one side, there are training materials that cover the gambit, not just Rise, yet on the below of Articulate 360, there is mention and focus around Rise.
I like tutorials and training, but it would make more sense to have them on the Rise 360 screen, or you could only show tutorials/training for Rise on the Articulate dashboard because Rise is right below it and has a big relevance.
On the main dashboard screen, you will see the words
To the right of it, you can also create new.
Templates mean templates which is a placeholder whereas you can create your content within the placeholder; whereas real content means there is content already pre-populated in the course or micro-learning, which you can still edit and tweak to however you wish to do so.
I never could figure out how it is decided what is “featured.” Is this based on what Articulate sees as featured content under the “All types?”
Maybe it is because it would be all real content, but in the above (which appears in the trial), it is not all “real content.”
However, you can see only courses that have real content OR are templates only—there is an option to do so under “All Types,” and it will show Featured and Popular.
Popular, you say?
Yep, Rise presents a channel for popular real content/templates under “All Types” or “Real Content” or “Templates.”
Is it popularity based on the collective of every client on the platform or based only on your organization?
Since this is a trial, it wasn’t clear.
I recommend that you ask before you purchase if that is something of importance to you—honestly, it should.
The “Featured” and “Popular” channels do not appear if you choose a specific subject.
For example, I selected “Compliance.”
When you hover over any course template or “real content,” even micro-learning, you will see options to select or preview it.
I went “Select” for the ADA Compliance for Managers.
The next screen will present the following text (the ADA Compliance for this one or something blah blah for another one, you pick), followed by some additional text.
Then below that you see your introduction.
You can move the lessons up or down in any order as you see fit.
Next to “Edit Content” is the infamous ellipse ……
The options there are Change Icon, Duplicate, Copy to Another Course, Delete
I went with “Edit Content”
And here is the crux of “Choose Template” option rather than “Real Content”.
In the template, you are provided with a foundation, and then you can add your own stuff.
Equally, with “Real Content” you can add or remove blocks (sections), add images/videos within the blocks, and so forth.
The “Real Content” is actual content that is pre-populated.
You can still edit it, add whatever you choose to add – think a WYSIWYG Toolbox along with the “options” choices you can choose.
Regardless if you go “Real Content” or “Choose Course Template” you will see the same options on the left -hand side of the screen.
- Pencil—Content—This will show that specific area on the left side of the screen. It seemed redundant to me since I can see it on my main screen and edit it there anyway.
- The painter palette – Style. Out of all the options in this toolbox, this one irritated me. When you have a button that is another color, you can’t change the color of said button with the palette, and why is it a Paint Palette? Besides me changing the color palette, which isn’t as exciting as one might think, I could see it being useful if it did more than what it shows.
- I forgot about the geometric thing in school—Yep, it’s here! Style. It’s useful and makes sense, but could it have gone into the big toolbox instead?
- AI logo – It’s AI
Knowing the premise of AI and assuming many people will buy this product because they want it. After all, you can populate content, update, tweak, etc., with it—this is how I went with the entire course-building episode for Rise 360.
In my test, I used “Real Content” for “Sexual Harassment Prevention Training”.
With the course I selected, I edited some of the real content by intentionally misspelling words and adding some of my own text to the “real content” text.
Ignore the red and blue underlining, that is from my grammar tool.
I was on a time crunch, and thus decided to hit the AI option
Once I clicked the AI block tool, I could either edit with AI or instantly convert the text to any of the following choices
I decided to edit the text
Again, intentionally misspelling a few of the words, I ignored the suggestions and decided to type into the prompt the following:
Yep, it did it!
I reviewed it before, just choosing “Replace block” which replaced the introduction copy with the new Approach as the introduction.
I wanted to do a bit more, so I added the following prompt: “Change tone to snippy and arrogant”.
Tada!
I immediately replaced what I had in the section with this new block.
If you choose not to replace the current block listed in the course, no worries—you can insert it below.
If you decide to replace the block with your next one, you can move it down, duplicate it, or delete it.
Those options appear on the right side of the screen at any given time—except in the edit AI block, which I went into with the prompts.
Bottom Line
In the past, I’ve written one massive size review covering the entire solution.
It gets quite long, and some people might start to hit the sleepy eyes’ syndrome.
Thus, part two will be published tomorrow (5-7).
On and upward or sideways or byways or any way you choose.
E-Learning 24/7
