#pathways

Sep 18, 2019
2 min

Troubleshooting your eLearning SCORM package

Most of times, if you are developing eLearning modules for big companies (or even if they are small companies), you will have to package the eLearning module in SCORM, whether it is 1.2, 2004 (any of the editions), AICC or Tin Can. Whichever it is, I am sure that the LMS person on the client side, will upload the SCORM package to a staging site and test it, or even upload it to the production site and roll it out to the learners, and once in a while, issues will arise such as

Jun 29, 2017
4 min

It's the 21st Century, people: Let's get social.

In my humble opinion, I think social learning is one of those topics that seems to come and go in our industry. I remember this being more of a "thing" when people of all ages became more comfortable with the various social platforms that extended beyond just Facebook. Back then, I always thought it would be so cool to integrate social technologies in corporate training, and was often told things like "Michelle, cool doesn't cut it.", or "it's not a learning thing, Michelle,

Jun 20, 2017
2 min

BYOD is here to stay.

The demanding increase of offering learning solutions that's engaging and current with today's technology is ever-rising. Though training in today's organization continues to lend itself to a blended range of informal and informal learning experiences, L&D professionals are becoming more responsive to where technology is leading our learning now more than ever. Few organizations no longer feel the need to "play it safe" when it comes to their training budget and instead, hav

Jun 16, 2017
3 min

Let's talk VR.

Organizations across Canada are stepping it up; efficiently improving employee performance by investing in modern technology that reflects the ongoing needs of today's learner. With Millennials now surpassing Generation X to become the largest generation in the workforce, top companies understand the importance and benefit of advancing their approach to learning in the workplace. Learning is beyond a keyboard and mouse, or pulling 50 salesmen out of their jobs and into a th

Jun 8, 2017
3 min

Writing Effective Instructions for eLearning

This morning I was browsing my LinkedIn page, looking at a few of the recent posts related to eLearning development when I noted a particular page, indicating I was one click away from previewing an interactive elearning demo. The posting included a few instructions which I reviewed and then, my curiosity perked, I selected the link that was labeled “demo” and that is where my interest ended. Immediately I found out the demo would not work with certain types of browsers,

May 31, 2017
3 min

Captivate 9 review, part 2

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

May 31, 2017
3 min

Captivate 9 review, part 1

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

May 19, 2017
2 min

Interpersonal Communication Skills Part III

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

Feb 16, 2017
4 min

What's your problem?

Earlier in my career, I had a boss who had a somewhat unique way of responding whenever he (or his team) was asked to take on a training & development project that was outside of the regular technical development we usually focused on. It did not matter the size of the project or how many resources would be required or for how long, his first question was always the same… “What problem are you trying to solve”? Now before anyone pulls an optical muscle rolling their eye

Jan 11, 2017
2 min

2016 Year in Review Part II

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

Nov 24, 2016
3 min

Future Trends in Learning and Technologies

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

Sep 20, 2016
3 min

PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND ELEARNING

Photogrammetry is an excellent tool to use in eLearning. It allows us to bring accurate representations of objects or locations to an unlimited audience. Before exploring how photogrammetry can be applied to eLearning, let’s take a look at what exactly it is: In the above illustration from http://schnellinformatics.com/photogrammetry.html, we can see how photogrammetry works. If you take a single photo, the resulting image is 2-dimensional and the computer has no way of knowi

Sep 14, 2016
5 min

GAMIFICATION PIPELINE

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

Aug 24, 2016
3 min

How to become time-effective when programming an eLearning module

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

Aug 5, 2016
2 min

Programming tips: Objective IDs in Articulate Storyline

In recent weeks, we were faced with a challenge from one of our clients, here at Pathways Training and eLearning, to report several scores from just one eLearning module. Let me give you some context on what we were developing. For this project, we were tasked to create several different tests within one Storyline file, to which the users would have access via a menu on the first slide. While this is simple to do, the most challenging part was to report to the LMS, the score

Jun 13, 2016
1 min

Customer Service Training: How to treat your customers right!

Pathways provides customer service training to many organziations. Our customer service training programs are designed for anyone who interacts with internal or external customers. It combines customer service training with best practices in customer communication to bring participants the skills they need for perfect customer service calls and interactions. Pathways customer service training programs have improved customer service scores on various dimensions by as much as 5

Jun 9, 2016
1 min

Why great customer service matters: the impact of your client’s experience!

Pathways provides customer service training for many organizations, contact us today to learn more at info@pathwaysinc.ca or 1-888-961-6011. #customerservicetraining #CanadianeLearningvendors #Pathways #TorontosleadingeLearningcompany

Jun 9, 2016
2 min

ELEARNING GRAPHICS TUTORIAL – CUSTOM BUTTONS WITH STATES WHEN DEVELOPING ELEARNING MODULES

While most authoring tools do have some options for premade interactive buttons, often a particular module job or client will call for something with a bit more care and uniqueness when developing an eLearning module. I would like to share a simple walk-through which I use to create unique reusable buttons for use in any eLearning authoring tool. STEP 1 – DESIGN I begin in Adobe Photoshop. Create a canvas with a transparent background, that snugly fits the desired shape. Be s

Jun 8, 2016
2 min

Injecting creativity from a programmer perspective

When developing eLearning modules, developers often work with Instructional Designers. These experts ensure that the course content enforces the learning objectives in the most effective way. But sometimes the documents and storyboards provided to the programmers may not be the most creative, from a developer perspective. As a developer you have the power to supplement creativity to further enhance user engagement beyond what has been established in the instructional design.

Feb 24, 2016
1 min

ELEARNING DEVELOPMENT – CREATING CUSTOM BUTTONS IN LECTORA

Creating customized buttons is something I consider an essential when designing visual elements in eLearning and or Web Based Training courses. When using Lectora things can be a little different when compared to the industry standard authoring tool (Articulate Storyline). With that in mind I would like to outline the process I use for creating custom buttons inside of Lectora. Below you can see the result of my custom button method, where we have the 3 primary states: Normal