Toolbook
Why include Toolbook? After all, it’s so OLD. Well, one thing I noticed as I learned Storyline was that in many ways it was similar to Toolbook, at least in so far as empowering your typical non-technical ID to develop an entire functioning course. I developed two large courses in Toolbook, but only have screen grabs for one of them. However, they both used similar functionality and GUI designs. I worked with a terrific graphic artist and did the rest myself in Toolbook.
3D equipment animation
The reversing rougher is a large machine with rollers that takes a hot steel bar (yellow rectangle) and passes the bar back and forth through the rollers under pressure. This spreads the bar out into a thin, very long sheet of steel that runs down a long line to a coiler that spools up the sheet metal into a roll. A graphic artist developed a 3D model of the equipment in 3D Studio Max to make it easy to show the user what was happening at any point in the process.
Operator view
This screen is an example of showing different variables the operator would see at a given time. From the operating booth where they observed and operated the reversing rougher, they saw everything through blurry video monitors like below right on this screen. They had to use what they could see from that image to confirm any changes they made via the computer system screens, shown here at left.
This screen is part of a simulation that walked the learner through a given operation. They would click through the flow first, then have a chance to take the steps themselves afterwards.
Simulation
I incorporated screen captures from the operation computer system into the Toolbook program and could have the learner walk through a given process. The simulation was limited to a particular series of steps, and the learner could either get it right or would receive guidance feedback if incorrect. The learner would walk through the steps as described to initially learn them, then would walk through again as an assessment. The pushbutton pad worked, and different entries would yield different results and feedback.
So while not a complete computer simulation, the program provided a learning environment that mimicked the booth the operator would be running the machine from, using the same bank of video monitor images and computer screens they would see during operations.
