Some years ago I worked on an e-learning project. The content was created by repurposing existing ILT powerpoint slides, chunking the content, filming the presentation, and adding "activities". There were many of reasons for doing this, one of which was time-to-market. It was viewed as effecient conversion.

I still see such courses and I also see much more sophisticated courses. I know pluses and minuses for each.

In the training vendor market space, getting products out is very critical. Speed is often preferred over what you and I might prefer in style or "quality". (I mean the videos might be fabulous, as might the ppts, but really other formats might be better. The ability to quickly get a successful ILT course onto the web for wide delivery can be a big win in terms of profit.)

So, my question is, are these PPT->e-learning conversions popular, reasonable, tolerated by the learner, etc.? What are your feelings?

For small business that can not afford a big price and long development time for polished content, conversion usually the way to go.


KingMarsh

John.. Yes they can be very effective. I have two that I use.. one results in visuals, with mild interactivinty and audio. The other results in a video with the visuals and audio. Depending on what I want to accomplish, depends on whcih I use. Happy to show you some output samples, as long as yu realize I am a SME not a professional eLearning developer. email me at scase20@juno.com and we can arrange a time to look at some of what I have done.. steve

travelerjjm, Try Articulate.com. We have had some very fine success creating engaging training with this rapid development tool that links with PowerPoint.

--peg

Hi John

I cannot personally vouch for this product, and its not 'specifically' e-learning targeted, but I have heard that it is quite capable, and at $50, it's certainly worth a look:

http://www.verypdf.com/ppt-converter/index.html

Apparently, it allows you to convert PowerPoint files to Flash (SWF), PDF, PS (postscript), WMF, EMF, MHTML, HTML, RTF, etc. vector formats.

I have also personally used Camtasia, which does the job, and have heard good things about a few others as well - none which can compete with $50 though.

Hope this helps.