My company wants to move our training to the next level by making it much more interactive. Unfortunately, we do not have the funds to pay a firm to do this for us. My manager wants me to take a class so I can create interactive, simulation-based training for our internal & external customers. I've scoured the Internet & this community searching for the best software to use (that we can afford). I've narrowed it down to either learning Flash or Captivate. I'm just not sure which is the most efficient use of time & money. I'm concerned Flash classes will be more geared toward web site developers & I won't learn what I need to create effective interactions. I'm concerned Captivate creates more passive interactions which is not something we want.

Any suggestions?

My opinion ... go with Captivate. We have used it to develop some pretty advanced training simulations for our customers. Besides, Captivate will automatically do for you just about everything that you are going to learn in an intro Flash class.

With that said, a larger issue in my mind is that it sounds like your manager has told you to develop fantastic e-learning without spending any money. Sorry ... it doesn't work that way. E-learning is a lot of things, but it is not cheap (at least up-front). For example, who is going to do your normal work while you are storyboarding and developing these simulations?

While Flash is great, you will have a huge development time for your training. Captivate reduces that tremendously yet still allows a lot of interactivity - download the demo version from Adobe's website and play with it.

You may also want to consider Authorware. While it has a steep learning curve (and is much more expensive), once you learn how to use it you can rapidly develop fully interactive training.

What kind of training do you need to do? IE - soft skills vs technical (systems navigation/use, construction, etc)

Having used both those tools, I think Captivate is an easier training development tool. It is a little light, but is MUCH faster development compared to Flash. You are right on with your thought that Flash is more for web developers. Flash is cool, but the real interactivity comes only by adding java scrips into the flash.

Also, you may want to level set your manager. Most of what we see in e-learning (IE - NetG) is pretty sophisticated and people get degrees to only develop web training programs. You don't attend a 2 day Flash course and start devleoping industry leading web training courses.....

I appreciate everyone's input.

In response to Tim's question, we will primarily use this training to teach clients the proper placement of industry specific instruments on a construction site. For example, they would drap and drop the instrument to the proper location on the site & would get immediate feedback (i.e. an illustration of the potential consequence if they placed it in the wrong place).