At first glance this ‘rapid interactivity builder‘ is a neat tool. It enables the creation of interactive rich media elements for online learning. It’s very easy to use, looks pretty, there’s a large selection of templates and examples that can be simply customised, and there’s even an attempt to link different types of interactivity to pedagogic theories (although I’m not convinced, for example, that dragging flags onto a map really represents the evaluation phase of Bloom’s taxonomy).
My problem with this tool is that with the vast majority of the templates the type of learning activity and level of interactivity seems trivial: drag-and-drop, roll-overs, page turning. While I think there is desperate need to incorporate more interactivity into online learning, and a tool like Raptivity would be very useful in the respect that it allows lecturers to simply create their own content, I would like to see interactivities that really promote deep learning rather than the somewhat simplistic examples provided here.
(Beware also, if you decide to download the trial version of this tool, don’t give genuine contact details unless you really like talking to salesmen.)
I tried it. It’s bobbins. A real danger with tools like Raptivity is that your learners start to see the same interactivity from course to course (“oh, another jeopardy game, hurrah”)