Writing and creating effective tests for understanding is a crucial component of developing a good eLearning program, and sadly however something that is often overlooked. Think about it for a moment…. how many times have you ever reviewed an eLearning course by skimming through the material, not really reading all of the content, muting the audio portions at times and despite all that, still aced the quiz at the end? Assuming most of us do not possess an eidetic memory or

For the past few weeks we have been discussing the importance of interpersonal skills, with the most recent discussion on the filters we use to interpret a message. As previously mentioned, the first thing to recognize is that messages are not sent directly from your brain to the receiver’s brain. As you deliver your message, it goes through a set of filters that can impact its meaning. These filters are Words, Tone and Body Language. This week, we will focus on Tone. Look

Recently I was shopping at a local department store when I came across something I thought was a bit out of the ordinary. A man who looked to be in his late 40’s, early 50’s, was admiring himself in a full-length mirror, swiveling his hips left and right in what I assume was an attempt to determine the fit of the pair of Blue Jeans he had on. What I thought was a bit odd was the fact the jeans looked so tight I can’t believe the gentleman had any blood flowing below the wa

Here is a cute circle interaction we built to enhance your elearning. The circles will spin around each other and show content, then the learner can click any of the circles to review the content. 3 Circle Interaction To make this work, there are actually 4 slides here. The first slide contains the animations where the circles come onto the screen and show all the content one after each other. Each of the next three slides comprises one of the circles, rotated to the top, and

In order to ensure that your eLearning course is accessible to everyone, you have to keep in mind the new Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act (AODA) act when designing your course and activities. The AODA act as it relates to eLearning, means that all learners, regardless of disabilities should be able to complete the same course and achieve the same objectives as fully-abled learners. Assistive technologies such as screen readers can help learners to access the c

Many of our elearning courses have included audio as part of the content. Here are some tips I’ve learned about using audio in elearning. 1. Keep music to a minimum Music is best kept to a short piece at the beginning and end of your elearning. An elearning course with full background music on at all times can be distracting, especially if there is already narration in other parts of the content. We once created an elearning with a piece of background music that turned out to

Last week I wrote about an eLearning module I had reviewed and provided feedback on. As I mentioned then, the material significantly lacked several key elements required when creating eLearning so this week I thought I would share a few tips and suggestions that will help ensure success, specific to our learners taking from the material exactly what you expected. The first piece of advice I would start with is the most obvious, and that is to ensure your material covers all

Recently a few folks from the Pathways team, including myself, flew to Vancouver to shoot a 360 video in partnership with St. Johns Ambulance. While I will be writing about that experience in the next few weeks as it was certainly an exciting project to be a part of…for today I would like to talk about a discussion I had with my seat mate on the flight over. About halfway through the flight my seatmate and I got in to a brief discussion about what we each did for a living.

After reading my sweet sweet description of what Moodle is and what it can do, if you are convinced this is the tool for you and your employees, you may be left wondering “What is necessary to implement Moodle in my company?” Well, there are two different paths you can take to implement Moodle: Build your own server and install Moodle Pay a Moodle partner to implement it for you Let’s make it clear from the beginning, in both options you will need time and money. Build your o

Of the many projects we work on at Pathways, one that continues to provide unique challenges and opportunities is a new system launch initiative for which we will be developing and delivering all of the training. (eLearning, ILT, job aids, video, etc.…). This training will be provided to employees all over Canada in each province so while there have been a few unique challenges as I mentioned above, overall it has been exciting! After several weeks of conferences, focus gr

Two weeks ago, I provided an introduction as part of a review of some of the exciting projects we worked on in 2016, so for the next few weeks I am going to go in to a bit more detail, with the focus this week on a project that involved eLearning, facilitation and one on one coaching. One of our clients is a luxury automotive company that, while they are already an industry leader when it comes to the “car buying” journey, continue to look for ways they can improve the custom

Last week I provided an introduction as part of a review of some of the exciting projects we worked on in 2016, so for the next few weeks I am going to go in to a bit more detail, starting with an on-boarding program we are developing for a large transit company. The training program is being designed for the control centre inspectors whom are part of a larger group made up of four separate contracting companies. Each company is responsible for bus service in a specific geo

This past year at Pathways Training & eLearning has been one filled with great opportunities, unique challenges and above all else, further proof we continue to lead the way in developing innovative learning solutions for our ever-growing list of clients. As such, over the next few weeks I am going to share our “story of 2016” which included everything from our continued partnership with one of the worlds most popular luxury automotive companies, the development of a new-hir

At the start of ever year there occurs a phenomenon that is as predicable as the rising Sun. The event in question is the annual setting of the New Years resolutions. Quitting smoking, losing weight, easing up on the drinking, etc. These are just a few of the resolutions that many of us decide to tackle with the best intentions, only to have most if not all fall by the wayside before Ground Hog day. Regardless of our collective success rate, in thinking about resolutions i

Recently I was asked a question by a client that I think I a god topic of discussion…and that is, how does one determine when to use eLearning versus in class, instructor led sessions? In the first part of the discussion last week we talked about the cost and environmental implications of each modality. This week I would like to briefly discuss other factors such as considering the learning objectives and available resources. When thinking of the content, ask yourself this…

Recently I was asked a question by a client that I think I a god topic of discussion…and that is, how does one determine when to use eLearning versus in class, instructor led sessions? In some instances, making the determination between using eLearning or instructor led training is simple, and often done for you before development starts. For example, consider geographic location of the intended audience. If the material you are developing is intended for a national or even

More often than not, I have been tasked to convert eLearning modules to newer versions of different authoring tools. In fact, if you have repeat clients (like in our case at Pathways), you may find yourself in this situation very often, in which clients ask you to update modules to newer versions and conform the functionality to the new tools offered by the software. But what happens when, for some reason, you must downgrade an eLearning module to an older version of an autho

Next week I will be directing an eLearning video that I have developed for one of our larger clients. The “shoot”, which will involve several volunteers who are not used to being in front of the camera, must be completed in one day. Considering both circumstances, there is the potential for roadblocks which could in turn mean the difference between success and failure. As such, in meeting with the production team this week, we discussed our overall strategy to help ensur

It has been a long time, since I have attended a conference where I have been absolutely amazed by the ideas being presented and excited to implement what I learned. Last week a few colleagues and I attended DevLearn in Vegas and the amount of new ideas and technologies which could impact the learning and training community, was impressive. For those of you who couldn’t be there, here are the 3 key learning trends we noted, and new technologies that will be impacting how we

Since I’ve started at Pathways, we’ve had great projects and we’ve had difficult projects; some that made us rethink our project management system and how we’ve been communicating with our clients. At our team meeting yesterday, we hashed out some things to help us deliver great results even on problem projects, and to ideally prevent projects from becoming problematic to begin with. 1. Have better definitions of review cycles for our clients. In the past, we’ve been stuck in