I have had situations in which I can’t easily get the image I need for my eLearning module, for example, if I am working off of a PDF file that the client provided, and it has an image that is relevant to the flow of the eLearning module, and the client isn’t able to provide the stand alone image file maybe because they don’t have it, I need to find a work around to extract that image and put it in the eLearning module. For the most part, Adobe Acrobat will allow me to export

In my many years of experience and the number of eLearning modules that I have completed for clients and their online training initiatives, the most common part of the process in developing these modules, is to receive feedback from the client and action those changes. This feedback goes from content changes (either text or images), voiceover changes, animations and even programming changes (sometimes we even need to redo parts of the eLearning modules due to changes in scope

Adobe Captivate is an application used for the development of various eLearning content. It is an alternative to the application we usually use for our development, Articulate Storyline. Although the two applications do share some similarities, and are used for the same purpose, there are some important differences between the two. I find that Captivate seems to run much slower than Storyline. Storyline seems to run smoothly, even when working on large projects. In Captivate,

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When you are starting a new eLearning project in Storyline, it is always best practice to first take care of several elements that you know won’t change easily or at all. These elements could be: Player style Player buttons Master slides (for content, quizzes and feedback) Slide size Font style Working on setting the ground for all these at the beginning of an eLearning project will make your life easier and will certainly speed up your process and ensure consistency througho

One of the things that I have always found challenging, ever since I started working in the eLearning field, is to gather feedback for an eLearning module. I have seen different ways in which this feedback is provided to the programmers by the client, like an Excel spreadsheet, Word documents, even long emails detailing all the changes. Ultimately, what’s important for the programmer is to receive clear instructions as to what the issue is and how it needs to be solved, or ho

As an eLearning developer who does work for a wide variety of clients, you can imagine that I am often forced to use a variety of authoring tools, despite Storyline 360 being the industry standard. While I definitely use Storyline 360 the most authoring tools such as Adobe Captivate and Lectora are a close 2nd and 3rd. Transitioning to a new elearning authoring tool for the first time is never a smooth process but here are a 3 simple tips that have allowed me to effectively j

A few months back, a premium car brand had set up an information kiosk at the mall. They had put up a poster that they have some interesting games and demos. Being curious, I ventured to try out one of these demos. It was an amazing experience as they had used virtual reality to take the user through a simulated test drive. Virtual reality is a very exciting concept that is catching on very quickly but what is fascinating is that it is now being used for marketing, sales and

A few months back, I spoke to a recruiter who asked me if I knew articulate. I secretly grinned, 'Didn’t she mean do you know 'how to' articulate?' I was also a little peeved, how could she ask me about my articulation skills when she herself wasn't being grammatically correct! "I think I have decent communication and articulation skills"; I said. Now, it was her turn to chuckle. Turns out she was referring to Articulate-Articulate Storyline-the e-learning authoring tool!! Si

Lately, it’s becoming a trend in my job, that interactions designed for eLearning modules are becoming more and more challenging each day, especially, since it was announced that browsers will stop supporting Flash altogether, which means that all those cool interactions or animations, that were originally developed in Flash, will have to be developed either directly in Storyline or in HTML5. I admit that jumping into HTML5 development can be even more challenging an time con

When you are running a business which employs human resources, you need to train these resources on how to use your customized tools, programs or software, offer services, engage with clients, and everything else. Assessing training needs and training employees is one of the most crucial functions for any business. This is where brains behind training content and eLearning developers get together. What you need next, is to follow a checklist to ensure a good quality eLearning

Let’s continue from where we left off on the previous post, but first let’s do a quick recap on things we have already discussed regarding translation of eLearning modules: Account for space, meaning that always keep in mind what languages the eLearning module is going to be translated into, when designing the layout - For example, when creating a French eLearning module, and the original eLearning module is English, you need to account for 30% more screen text as the French

A few months back the Pathways Training and eLearning team partnered with our friends at Saint John Ambulance to create one of Canada’s first 360 video eLearning modules. The program is intended for students participating in a first aid program, with this particular module dealing with best practices when responding to a mass casualty event. The virtual reality simulation allowed the students to “walk though” a mass casualty scene (using a virtual reality viewer such as G

As I promised on my previous post, I will talk a bit more about the Captivate asset library in this article, so that you can have an idea of what you are missing for not using Captivate 😊 Honestly, and beware of the spoiler that follows if you haven’t finished watching the season 6 of Game of Thrones, with this library I kind of feel like Samwell Tarly when he entered the library in the Citadel, and was awestruck by the awesomeness and vastness of the knowledge that surrende

Here at Pathways, we truly don’t have a preferred eLearning authoring tool, as we accommodate our development workflow to the needs of our clients and the project. Of course, we offer expertise not only using these authoring but so many other tools for audio, video, graphics, interactions, etc., and we suggest to our clients the optimal route, for the sake of the project. However, in many cases, we are restricted by the requests from our clients, who will ask to only use one

Here at Pathways, we like to always use the most advanced tools when it comes to creating eLearning modules. Of course, that includes using the latest versions of rapid eLearning authoring tools, like Storyline or Captivate. However, it is always important to explore these tools and make internal tests, before considering using them for clients’ projects. Such is our case with the new Articulate Storyline 360, which was released a few weeks ago, and as part of our day-to-day

Alright, time for some classic eLearning development discussion! In the last few blogs, I have been discussing our experiences and lessons learned in the realm of 360 eLearning videos, but since here at Pathways, we are still designing and developing lots of classic (and very interesting) eLearning modules. Of course, we always strive to take our products to the next level, making good use of the tools and even extending their functionality with external tools. However, the c

When programming interactions, timeline events and other functions in your elearning, most of these things are tied to triggers. The trigger systems in Storyline and Captivate are very different, and for the most part, Captivate is able to handle more complex functionalities. Storyline The Storyline trigger panel allows you to have an action happen to an object when a specific event happens on an object, not necessarily the same one as the first. Any object can have any numbe

Recently I’ve had to learn Captivate for a new project, and as a seasoned user of Storyline, I’m here to help any other programmers through this transition between elearning authoring tools. Captivate can be frustrating for a user who is used to Storyline, as Captivate is less intuitive, has more menus, fewer animations and quizzing options, and some other differences that made it difficult for me to make this jump. To start, I found it was more difficult and time consuming

Storyline comes with a lot of great features and built in eLearning activities, but there are a few limitations to the available interactions. Storyline’s drag and drop activity is great, and allows multiple items to have the same correct drop spot, but currently you can’t have an item with more than one correct drop spot. This was mentioned in my Storyline 3 wishlist of new features. However, Storyline’s trigger wizard allows you to program custom events for when items are d