Adding screen recordings to your Articulate Storyline projects

In this article I will show you the different ways to add screen recordings into your Articulate Storyline projects.

Unlike similar rapid e-Learning development tools, Articulate Storyline enables you to choose how you would like the screen recordings to be inserted after you have finished capturing your screen action. With Storyline, all your screen recordings are saved as part of your project. This is an incredibly powerful feature which means that you only have to capture your screen action once.

For example, let’s say that you are working on a project that introduces learners to the Articulate E-Learning Heroes website. Using Articulate Storyline, you can create your screen recording and then decide how you want to insert your screen recording using the Insert Slides dialog box.

There are two ways that screen recording(s) can be inserted into a Storyline project:

• Video on a single slide
• Step-by-step slides

Video on a single slide

Insert your screen recording on a single slide and Articulate Storyline will add real-time video, including audio exactly the same as if you were creating a video using Articulate Screenr _SM. Optionally, you can also determine whether the mouse cursor should be included.

Using the Insert Slides dialog you can choose to insert your screen recording(s) into an existing Storyline scene or a new one.

Video on a single slide and Storyline objects

Video inserted on a single slide behaves in exactly the same way as any other Storyline slide. Want to draw attention to a certain region of your captured screen? Not a problem; just add a Zoom region. You can even include interactivity using Slide Layers and Triggers!

Step-by-step slides

The second way that screen recordings can be inserted into your Storyline project is as Step-by-step slides.

When creating systems software training your e-learning course typically will consist of a number of steps.

For example, if you were creating a module on recording your screen in Storyline, your list of steps might look something like this:

1. Open Storyline
2. Choose Record screen from the Storyline Welcome screen
3. Move and resize the Recording Frame
4. Click the Red (Record) button
5. Press Done or Escape (on your keyboard) when finished

If your course is for novice users, you might want to start by showing them the steps, and then get them to try them out for themselves and then maybe test to see if they can carry the steps unaided.

For more seasoned users, you might want to just test their knowledge in a simulated environment with or without any screen prompts.

Select the Step-by-step slides and Articulate Storyline will provide you with three options all which can be inserted into the same Story file.

• View mode steps
• Try mode steps
• Test mode steps

It is important to note that when inserting a screen recording as Step-by-step slides rather than Video on a single slide your recorded audio will not be included.

View mode steps

Choose View mode steps and your learners can watch whilst each of the steps are demonstrated to them. By default choose this option and Storyline will insert the following objects:

• Caption Text
• Mouse Cursor
• Clicks with highlight

If required you can specify whether these objects should be included using the View Slide Options dialog box.

There are 11 different languages for your caption text to choose from.

Your Step-by-step slides can be inserted into an existing scene or you can also create a new one.

Try mode steps

Using Try mode steps you can enable your learners to engage with the learning experience and try out the steps for themselves. Choose Try mode steps and Storyline will by default add the following objects to your project:

• Text Captions
• Hand cursor when hovering over hotspots
• Hint captions (When Hovered)

Test mode steps

The Test mode steps option enables you to check if the learner can carry out each step for themselves unaided. Choose Test mode steps and Storyline will, by default, add the following to your project.

• Incorrect feedback
• A results slide
• Limit attempts to Unlimited (Number of attempts can be set to 1 – 10)
• Try again feedback

Working with Step-by-step slides

Just as with Video on a single slide, you can choose to insert the steps into an existing scene or a new one. Once your steps have been inserted into your project you will notice that for both View and Try mode steps, each of your slides is automatically labeled.

Preview or Publish and you will notice that these labels are also added to the Storyline Player menu tab.

Adding audio to your Step-by-step slides

As mentioned earlier in this article when creating Step-by-step slides your recorded narration isn’t incuded. To add narration you have two options:

• Insert sound  from a file
• Record audio using a microphone

Inserting sound from a file

To insert sound from a file carry out these steps:

1. Select the Insert tab of the Storyline ribbon
2. Click on the Sound icon
3. Choose Sound from File…
4. Select the audio file you wish to import
5. Click Open

The inserted audio file will now appear on the Timeline.

Note: Articulate Storyline supports the following audio file formats:

Recording from a microphone

To insert narration by recording your voice using a microphone carry out these steps:

1. Select the Insert tab of the Storyline ribbon
2. Click on the Sound icon
3. Choose Record Mic…
4. Click the Record button
5. Record your voice
6. Click Save.

Articulate Storyline even includes a Narration script window where you can insert the voice-over script that you want to include on each of your step-by-step slides.