After an insanely stressful Jan Term (3 weeks long!), the spring semester is much more relaxed. Our professors understand and are easing us in, which is great!

Captivate looks like quite a monstrosity of a program, but it does have many of the features of other Adobe programs with which I'm familiar. My mind tends to sort Adobe products into two categories, daunting and familiar. (Although that doesn't have the lovely alliteration of “monster or meerkat.”) Daunting includes Illustrator and…I can't think of another. Maybe InDesign, although I'm more comfortable with it than I used to be. Familiar includes Acrobat, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks.

I'm fascinated that Captivate is another program, along with Dreamweaver and Fireworks, formerly owned by Macromedia and turned into a (as our instructor said) “red-headed stepchild.” I won't go off into a rant about Fireworks development being discontinued, as it's not appropriate here, but ask me about it sometime. Yep, old enough to be bitter.

Instructional Design excites me so much, and I'm thrilled in this semester to be getting down into the meat of the subject. I look forward to exploring Captivate. Bring it on!