Controlled Navigation

John Bryant and I have been talking a lot about controlled navigation. I appreciate the fact creating branched navigation is probably a complex task. Controlling branching will be complex for authors as well.

On the other hand, it seems like controlling the player is relatively simple - there seem to be a zillion commands in the SDK. Why can't you put a control in presenter view which allows the author to turn off the player controls and control the interaction via screen controls. It would seem to be "a quick fix" until you come up something more elegant.

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Joe. Thanks for the plug for a feature that I believe is not only essential, it is a deal killer without it. I have purchased Ispring Presenter 6.0 for it attractiveness and for use in email advertising. For elearnig, it is worthless.

I see no reason that controlled navigation could not be implemented immediately by allowing the user to eliminate the navigation buttons form the Streamline template. The sidebar is nice but I could live without it for now.

Here is a sample presentation with controlled navigation.

http://www.georgiaappraiser.com/temp/

After allowing the user to eliminate the navigation buttons, Ispring techs need to work on the sidebar. The best solution would be to allow users the options of turning off the navigation aspects of the sidebar allowing students to navigate to the slides they have viewed but not to slides they have not viewed. This may be a little harder than eliminating the navigation buttons but is essential in the long run.

Without controlled navigation, there can be no branching scenarios.
Without controlled navigation, there can be no effective triggered animations.
Without controlled navigation, there can be no effective student interaction.
Without branching triggered animations and student interaction, there can be no effective elearning.

Surely the fix would be as simple as providing the "third view" setting that Articulate provides - "slide only" (which removes both the side bar and the player controls? Or am I missing something? (Probably am.)

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Actually, Btwopointoh, there is one other thing that may be the most difficult programming task. When using controlled navigation, navigation capability of the sidebar must be turned off as well or the student could jump to any topic they like.

Articulate does this rather elegantly. There is an option that let's the student jump backward to slides already viewed but not forward to slides not yet viewed.

This allows the student to review a section before taking a quiz but does not permit the student to view sections out of order. Still, your "third view" concept plus control of the sidebar would be the best of all worlds.

I don't know why the powers at Ispring don't see this. With controlled navigation, they could be pushing Articulate as a worthy alternative. Their interface, animation, and triggers are so much better.

I suspect there is also a lot of work left on the quizzes. I haven't gotten there yet. If necessary, I can use a third party quiz software and provide a link.

John,

I just purchased iSpring 6 to use in a graduate school instructional design course assignment (see an a separate post I made regarding a Windows DEP error when publishing a single slide presentation with a YouTube video).

I have been following your threads regarding controlled navigation/branching because that will be a key feature of the assignment I am working on. I also follow Tom Kuhlmann (http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/). Although he is firmly in the Articulate camp, I have found he is also a great PowerPoint and e-learning resource and have been able to download some great example .pptx files and watch videos showing how he creates various interactions in PowerPoint.

Would you be willing to share your .pptx file for your http://www.georgiaappraiser.com/temp/ example? I would like to learn how you handled controlled navigation in PowerPoint to get around the navigation controls in iSpring. I understand if not, and thank you for your time.

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kevinp. I will be glad to share my controlled navigation slides with you. Shoot me an email at john@georgiaappraiser.com. I have some new slide I use in my classes that use triggers. I also follow Tom Kuhlmann at Articulate. The only real reason I didn't buy Articulate to begin with was the requirement that the slides be 4:3 ratio and the lack of triggers. I could live without triggers but not without controlled navigation.

Sorry it too so long to respond to you but I have about quit visiting this site for lack of anything new. I first asked about controlled navigation on April 11, 2011. I have been promised controlled navigation in version 6.* but there is rarely, if ever, any mention of version 6.*.

Here is the promise:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2249

I may have to buy Articulate after all. Controlled navigation seems like such a simple modification. With the source code, I believe I could do it myself.