Complete Newbie

Alexis,

Welcome! I sat in the same situation as you about 6 years ago. It gets better, I promise. There are a couple things that you can do to get started quickly.

To start off with I would suggest selecting Click and Learn from the Help button drop down in the upper right hand corner of Lectora (blue question mark). This is a fun Lectora built course that's vacation themed and it takes you through the various stages of adding content into a new course.

Then explore content in the Knowledge Base of the Community. Start with the Lectora 101 series (http://community.trivantis.com/tag/lectora-101/). It goes through the basics of getting up and running with Lectora in short videos. You can pick and choose which ones you want to learn as you need it or review them all for a comprehensive look at the tool. Be sure pause or take time in between the videos to repeat the actions within Lectora to make sure you're comfortable. Once you're ready to move onto more advanced features or longer videos you can check out other content in the Knowledge Base. The Inspiration Wednesday videos are an awesome way to take a deeper dive into a specific topic.

If you haven't already I would suggest storing a copy of the Lectora User Guide (http://trivantis.com/e-learning-software-user-guides/) on your desktop. It's a great reference. I'm a little bit of a nerd when it comes to learning new software and enjoyed reading it (over time; it's huge). The same information is also found in Lectora by selecting Help then Information Center. You can always search for a keyword or drill down to a specific topic.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

Thank you so much! The Lectora 101 videos helped me figure out exactly what I was doing wrong, and I look forward to digging in further. Now I just need to figure out what to create a practice course on!

I always suggest starting with a course about a hobby or something your a big fan of like a TV show or book. You'll be more interested if it's something you enjoy doing in real life. A lot of people I've talked to have started off with cooking courses but you can get wrapped up in finding the right graphic(s).

Otherwise a get to know me course is great because you don't have to come up with new content. You already know everything about you lol And it's fast and easy especially if you're a social media junkie like me. Pictures from Facebook, likes and dislikes off Pinterest, and biography from LinkedIn and you're good to go. Add a quiz at the end and you're good to go.

Or you can recreate something from your on boarding process because the content's already there and you have to know it anyways.

Hi Alexis,

I'd start by ignoring all the tabs (file, home, design, insert, test and survey, tools, etc) at the top of the page except insert. Hit the insert tab and the insert ribbon will show a bunch of options. Start at the left and hit text block. A text block will appear in the middle of your screen. Expand it to the size you want by dragging one of the circles or squares on the box. Double click the default text and type whatever you want. Also notice the additional tabs that show up to the right of the standard ones--properties, style and position and size. those are good to get familiar with. Click outside the box when done.

Notice the groupings of icons along the insert ribbon. Notice also the vertical lines that separate groupings. At the bottom of each group it says 'add text', 'add image', 'add media', 'add navigation and interaction', 'add web object', or 'add more'. These categories help compartmentalize what you want to add. Each ribbon (file, home, design, insert, test and survey, tools, etc) is chunked out like this. It's easy to miss when you first open up Lectora. Once you see how it's organized, using it makes a lot of sense.

Once you're bored with adding text boxes, 'adding a character' will open a tab with a bunch of files with stock characters in different poses. They're kinda fun and it expanded my ideas of what I can do within a course--it can change the mood of it pretty quickly, from a serious text to something more whimsical to downright cartoony if you add some images from your personal stash or you find on the web. Add a button from the 'add navigation and interaction' grouping, then notice the additional tabs that show up to the right of the standard tabs--properties, style, position and size and action. Add an action to the button to go to another page. I wouldn't mess with the add media or web object at this point. Focus on getting comfortable with doing simple things--adding stuff and then changing them. Add some shapes, change the look of the buttons, etc. I found that it gets fun pretty quick.

I hope this helps. I'm pretty new to this myself and I remember how overwhelming it looked at first. Have fun!