It has been several months since COVID-19 and the coronavirus pandemic begun. During this time the way we work and learn has dramatically shifted and the need for online eLearning and digital training is more important than ever. Developing eLearning and digital training is very different than a traditional classroom setting and as a result there are some things you should consider. Below are some things you should consider when developing online training and eLearning. 1. Fi

When developing eLearning and digital training it is important to remember that it is not only about the content of the course. Its true that content is a very important part of the eLearning and that learners taking the course need the correct material, however it is also important to ensure your learners have an enjoyable and interactive experience. Below are some things you can do to prevent your eLearning becoming static and not enjoyable. 1. Text Overload Text overload i

When developing eLearning courses ensuring a good quality course can be developed to a timeline is key. When designing an eLearning module there will usually be some form of deadline in place for when the curriculum needs to be released to learners. eLearning modules have different deadlines, some are stricter than others, but regardless, being able to reduce the time it takes to develop an eLearning module without loosing quality is a great benefit when developing any eLearn

Gamification is a hot new buzz word in corporate training departments. Despite this hot new trend, few companies are actually applying gamification to learning. So what is gamification? According to Kevin Werbach from Penn University, the definition of gamification is the application of game elements and digital game design techniques to non-game problems such as business impact and social challenges.* According to recent studies, learners retain more information when gaming

An effective technique for ensuring your learners are truly absorbing your content in an elearning module is using a storytelling approach. When your content is wrapped up into a story it becomes more memorable and relatable to the learner than simply stating the facts and hoping that something sticks. The key is to make the story relatable to the learner so they can see the correlation and apply what they’ve learned to real-life situations. Walkthroughs and tutorials can be

So you need to adapt a bunch of content into an eLearning course. It’s easy to make some mistakes that will make things more difficult for your programmer or learners. Here are a few pitfalls of instructional design to avoid. Putting too much content on one screen Here we have a storyboard slide that incorporates both content and an activity. However, there is hardly any space to arrange the activity content, which was intended to be a matching drop-down. This was better off

There are many trainers out there that are sitting on presentations which are usually in PowerPoint. While you will probably want to update the material, you don’t need to scrap it altogether. If you would like to take the presentation and make it an interactive elearning course, here are a few tips: Choose the right authoring tool – there are a number of authoring tools that will help with the transformation and each one has different capabilities. Some of the most popular a

What Is Gamification? Gamification is a method of motivating and engaging learners by using elements of gaming in learning environments. Gamification can increase the efficiency and retention of curriculum material for learners of all levels, from children to industry professionals. Gamification fosters the natural human inclinations for competition, completion, and interaction, among others. Some elements of games that may be used to motivate learners and facilitate learning

Here's a quick look behind the scenes at Pathways' process for building an eLearning module. For more on how you can apply this process to the eLearning you're creating, or more great infographics like this one, visit us at our blog and website at www.pathwaystrainingandelearning.ca. #torontoelearningvendor #developingeLearning #instructionaldesign #Development #Canadiantraningcompany #PathwaysTrainingandeLearningInc #TorontosleadingeLearningcompany #infographics #eLearningve

There have been times when, as a company, we have faced very difficult challenges when programming eLearning modules, and it’s almost never because of our lack of skills or experience, but because the timelines we are given for the development of a module is way too reduced compared to its requirements. Of course, our first go-to plan to comply with the times of the project, is to pull all-nighters or use multiple resources, hoping for the best and that Murphy’s law doesn’t a

One of the more popular trends we have seen lately is the request for 2-3 minute micro-training videos. These videos are a great way of delivering content to learners in small, content specific bursts. So why has microlearning become so popular? Internet sites like youtube for one, and you must also take a look at who comprises the majority of learners these days. Millennials alone will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025 and the average attention span of millennials is 90 s

The evolution of learning has changed quite drastically over the past hundred years, long gone are the days of teachers writing on chalkboards. So here we are in 2016, looking to the future and the most effective possible ways to deliver training. Virtual reality (VR), is still quite new, however it looks like it will be the wave of the future. According to the “Cone of Learning” from Edgar Dale, after two weeks, the human brain tends to remember 10% of what it reads, 20% of

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 is the module going to be translated into, when designing the layout Export the text by using the feature provided in Storyline And don’t change the formatting of the exported text, to avoid any undesired issues when reimporting the transla

I always thought translating eLearning modules into different languages was a big deal, and it seemed to be a more complicated task than actually programming a module from scratch. But that was before I got to work with Storyline. From my experience, I would say that Storyline reduces the time spent on translating the eLearning modules at least in 50%. I could be exaggerating, but I was blown away when I learned how to do it with this software. However, there is more to it th

Given the new Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act (AODA), it is important to ensure your eLearning is accessible for all learners. At Pathways, we have created this Accessibilty Process document to help our instructional designers and programmers produce eLearning that meets AODA standards. We are sharing this document with you, in the hope that it will help others to understand how to create 100% accessible AODA compliant eLearning in the future. Pathways Process

When developing an eLearning module, you will often need to provide closed captions (CC) that can be toggled on and off. There are several ways to do this, and I want to share a method with you which works the best for us as Pathways Training and eLearning. Let’s first examine some other ways and their deficiencies. You could create closed captions by placing text boxes on tracks in the timeline, and timing their start and end to the audio. Although this method works, your st

Here’s a few of my favourite tips and tricks. Keep these in mind when you’re designing your next eLearning module, and they’ll definitely enhance your productivity! TRANSITIONS The Transitions panel at the top of the Storyline can be used to adjust the transition between any two screens. This obviously includes between slides, but it can also be used to transition between layers! This can be a great time-saver, if for example you’re using layers to overlay text or images on t

The rise of graphical user interface-based programming software such as Storyline has simplified the creation of software and web content. No longer purely the domain of geeks, it is now possible to create a web application, for example, with no formal training, and no knowledge of a programming language. This democratization of technology has led to a flood of creativity, as anyone with an idea and a little patience can turn it into a mobile or web-based application. Unfortu

Here’s a quick look at how to create a cool Storyline-compatible hotspot interaction in Flash for an eLearning module. I recently wanted to make a pick-many activity where the user could select multiple keys on a keyboard. In Storyline, hotspot activities are weakened by the fact that only selectable objects have a hand cursor over them. I got around this by making a huge hotspot that covered the entire keyboard, and then putting the ‘correct’ hotspots on top of that one. Thi