This is one of the best authoring tools in the market. As a strong user of most of them, we ran across iSpring Suite years ago when the product was still evolving. Who would have thought that having these tools embedded inside PowerPoint would make such an impact? There is nothing I can't do with iSpring Suite that others claim is unique to their authoring products, and some things that I can do even better.
Khan Academy is a great supplement for things you already have learned, or as a mid-level course (versus a deep dive or high school/university level course). It is great for a paced learning environment if you want to casually refresh yourself on a subject or learn something new. I don't think this should be a replacement for structured learning, or if you struggle in self-paced learning environments. There have been times I would like to have been able to ask a professional (like an instructor) when struggling with a subtopic, which is possible in a classroom setting.
Adding audio narration to interactive slides is easy, but still perhaps a bit repetitive/clunky
The way you add playlists works well, but wish it was "project/course specific", instead of carrying over from project to project. Easy to delete playlists, tho.
If you have a common set of learner resources to make available over many courses, you must manually add the URLs and/or PDFs manually each time. Would be so nice to be able to create a "reference list" and import it to each course with a click or two. This is the most annoying thing I can think of about iSpring.
The software integration was appealing to our department--particularly to the faculty who had not, prior to the pandemic, taught online--because it integrates with an already known entity: PowerPoint. Furthermore, iSpring's assessment builder with its wide variety of questions is extremely easy to use--basically plug and play--for any level of comfort that a faculty member has in terms of online teaching.
I had a difficult issue where iSpring just stopped working. It turned out to be a Microsoft Windows/Office issue. The iSpring Support team continued to contact me until we got the issue resolved. A support team that does not wait for the customer to call back is EXCEPTIONAL. I can not think of any other vendor that was this devoted to finding a solution! My compliments to "Dana" and the rest of the iSpring support teasm!
I've only had to seek support one time. There was a glitch in one of my lessons and I submitted an email. The glitch was fixed by support within a few days, but I would've liked for it to be faster. However, I don't have a big complaint there because it is a free service.
Therer are several other interactive video creation tools out there, such as Camtasia, Adobe Captivate and even PowerPoint on its own, but none of them come close to offering the galaxy of features that is served up by iSpring Suite, and it's the easiest to learn and use with affordable price tags
I personally found Khan Academy much better suited for adult learning of difficult or larger topics. Not so much for smaller changes that can be communicated via email. But it was more engaging and I found the information easier to digest. Change management can be tough but with the right tools it can be a breeze.
We allow potential customers to sample training and feedback is our offerings differentiate us from our peers.
Having the ability to offer an accessible training catalog and self-enrollment is also something our customers comment on positively.
The training developed in iSpring has allowed our customers to prepare for further interaction with our processes and projects on their own timeline, and has positively impacted the ease with which we are able to execute project rollouts.
