DemoFest 2008 Winners

DemoFest is also a low-key “People’s Choice” style competition where everyone has a chance to vote for their favorite demos. The DemoFest 2008 winners are listed below:

Best of Show
Table #6 - Business in Balance: Implementing an Environmental Management System
Presented by: Stephen Davies from DISTIL Interactive

Best Product/Service Provider Entry
Table #6 - Business in Balance: Implementing an Environmental Management System
Presented by: Stephen Davies from DISTIL Interactive

Best Non-Product/Service Provider Entry

Table #18 - Speaking the Language of Electricity in Sales and Service
Presented by: Dawn Orem and Sharon Boller from Ingersoll-Rand

Best Blended Learning Course

Table #7 - Bonneville Ethics Boot Camp
Presented by: David Richards from eMersion

Best Use of New Technologies
Table #27 - The World of Makrini
Presented by: Richard Smith from PIXELearning

Best Asynchronous Learning Course
Table #1- Law Enforcement Response to Terrorism
Presented by: Steve Lee from Allen Interactions

Best Synchronous Learning Course
Table #21 - Developing Interactive Courseware to teach Physics in the Malaysian Classrooms
Presented by: Subha Ramiah from LinkQED LLC

If you’ve stopped by our Community Showcase lately, you’ve probably seen some great examples of how our customers use Studio ‘09 to create compelling elearning content.

One of the featured demos is from a customer called e-Mersion.

The Earthquake Preparedness demo from e-Mersion leverages a number of Studio ‘09 features:

Flash animations (.SWF and .FLV)
Presenter ‘09 branching
Embedded Engage ‘09 interactions
Timed challenge with Quizmaker ‘09 and branching
e-Mersion created the Earthquake demo in less than three weeks. The tools used included Presenter ‘09, Engage ‘09, Quizmaker ‘09, Video Encoder ‘09, Poser, Photoshop, and Final Cut Pro:

View e-Mersion Earthquake Demo

Below is an in-depth look at the challenges e-Mersion faced and how each of the Studio ‘09 products helped the company overcome these challenges.

Articulate Presenter ’09

Before Presenter ‘09, e-Mersion had a 7-page production process. This process included using a number of third-party software programs and several hours of additional graphic design and authoring per annotation. At the end of this cumbersome process, e-Mersion was able to create an annotation effect and import this into Articulate Presenter.

“However,” said David Richards, President of e-Mersion, “we ended up compromising the image quality and clients were not satisfied with the final product.

Using the Presenter ‘09 annotation feature, e-Mersion was able to modify its 7-page production process into a single page with only 7 steps.

“The client was extremely happy with the final product,” said David.

Articulate Quizmaker ‘09

e-Mersion recently created an interactive proficiency assessment for a client. This needed to be highly interactive. In the past, e-Mersion created simulations with another authoring tool. Given that the company had an extremely short production timeline, the team knew they didn’t have time to create the needed assessment using this tool.

Using Quizmaker ‘09, e-Mersion significantly reduced its production process and was able to finish a week before deadline.

“This would not have been possible had we chosen to use the existing quiz tool and process,” said David.

e-Mersion’s top three favorite new features of Quizmaker ‘09 include the following:

• The new branching features
• Ability to customize the slide background
• Advanced customization options for the player

Articulate Engage ‘09

e-Mersion’s favorite new features of Engage ‘09 include the following:

• Branching
• Advanced customization options for the player
• Summary step

“We’re also looking forward to participating in and creating interactions through the forthcoming community interactions feature that will be available with Engage ‘09,” said David.

Video Encoder ‘09

“We find Video Encoder ‘09 very easy to use and think it is a valuable addition to the Articulate suite of tools,” said David.

You can download a PDF on The Making of the Earthquake Demo.