We have the privilege of working across a huge range of sectors and organisations. So, it’s interesting that we often find new clients asking the same questions. In this series of posts, we’ll cut across the most common challenges occupying people’s minds. Here’s another big one: Whether to customise or not to customise your LMS/LXP…. …
As a Totara Gold Partner, the Synapsys’ team is excited to work with the latest Totara v18! Among numerous new features, two stand out as particularly exciting for us! Firstly, the capability to duplicate learning programs significantly reduces administrative time. Whether you are a course administrator, a system administrator, or a course creator, you can…
Kia ora, At the end of each year we always feel tired, ready for a break. December 2023 felt different. There was a real sense of exhaustion across the board. We felt the relentless acceleration of change and the pressure to keep assimilating to it. We felt economic pressures – on us personally and on…
With over 20,000 learners, The Career Academy is an internationally recognised online education provider who partners with industry to help learners advance their careers. At that scale, operational efficiency goes hand in hand with seamless, compelling learning experiences. As their Totara partner, our job is to ensure their learning platform achieves both goals – compelling…
In this very interesting episode of the Learning While Working Podcast Lars Hyland and Matt Linaker from Totara discuss how to navigate the challenges of AI in workplace learning. Lars emphasised the idea that generating content at a faster pace with the help of AI tools might not be advantageous if there is no connection…
🌟 Celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 2023 with us! 🌟 As we embrace Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 2023, we thought we would share the resources we find most helpful as we build our language skills. Here’s what we love and recommend: 1️⃣ Te Aka Māori Dictionary – our favourite te reo dictionary,…
Keeping microlearning short is essential because it aligns with the way people learn in today’s fast-paced, attention-scarce world. Short, focused content improves engagement, retention, accessibility, and flexibility, making it an effective approach to training and education. To help you achieve your microlearnig objectives, Synapsys put together a practical design resource: Synapsys hacks: Keeping the ‘micro’…
We have been exploring Artificial Intelligence (AI) image generators – how they work, what they do, and if we can see a potential use of them in our work. AI content tools are currently a subject of discussion, and it is important to understand their functionality to make informed decisions about their usage. AI generators…
We believe that understanding the goals of a workplace learning solution is essential for creating the best experiences. If you’re clear about why your organisation wants your team to learn something, you’re in the best place to choose the optimal learning activities. It is helpful to determine how much depth of understanding is required for…
As online workshops have become more common, an ongoing challenge has been how to engage learners in the sessions. How do you recreate the participation and collaboration that happens when people are learning face-to-face? Miro is a really useful tool for online facilitation, we’ve been using it in workshops for project managers. Miro is an…
One of the first conversations we have with many of our clients starts like this: I’ve already done a full learning needs analysis and gathered all the content; Can you start building learning content for us? People seem quite surprised when we still want to go through a discovery process before giving a final answer…
Experts sometimes do not have good insights into what support is required by beginners. It’s natural when you think about it. Experts are experts because they’ve been working in a particular space for a long time. Think of something you can do extremely well. Can you remember what it was really like when you knew…
At Synapsys, our Design Phase helps us to look at what formats will help your learners to succeed, based on the goals of your learning intervention and how you want your learners to feel about what you have to share with them. Bringing together the audience analysis with the options for interactions means the resulting…
Have you ever thought how user testing can help learning designers improve their skills? We recently had an excellent experience that not only reinforced the importance of user testing, but also helped us understand learners’ needs better. Trust in the process enhances outcomes We were working on materials with Silver Fern Farms who have a…
Great ideas need excellent execution. We asked our project managers for their recipe for starting a successful learning project. 1. Identify your subject matter experts (SMEs) early to ensure they have time available for the project. 2. Get SMEs involved early so they understand the planning process and can come on the…
A huge proportion of our learning experiences start with unlearning. Debunking myths, learning new tools, new processes… Pretty much any big systems implementation will require unlearning. It’s great when your learners are already open to new ideas and have a growth-oriented mindset. But how do we help them get there? We recently came across this…
At Synapsys, we see learning as being about helping the learners to move from one stage of understanding to another. It is important for us to have a solid grip on what you hope to achieve through the learning intervention, so we can support it. Are we trying to make people aware of what they…
The thing about learning objectives is that they can be compared to designing a house. Just as you need to know the specific requirements of a person when building a house, you also need to understand the needs of learners when defining learning objectives. For instance, consider a family with three children, who are…
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP) recently upgraded their Totara TXP to boost their capability to deliver learning programmes to their registrars in a more accessible, engaging, and fulfilling way. The College uses the Totara platform to deliver General Practice Education Programme and Rural Hospital Medicine Training Programme for doctors who would…
In 2021, New Zealand was the host for APEC– a year-long, high-level diplomatic conference that would showcase New Zealand on the international stage. COVID-19 changed the game, with all interactions needing to move to an online platform on short notice. The APEC NZ team needed to move fast, not only taking the APEC – Asia-Pacific…
Do you remember the super fun and engaging microlearning project we did with WorkSafe New Zealand and AKQA called “Pickled”? It was a series of learning games that made it to the finals of the Mobile Experience category at The Webby Awards, which received over 13,500 submissions from over 70 countries. That’s right, Pickled was such a hit! Guess what?…
We are really happy to see Articulate‘s new microlearning option in Rise 360! Our learning designers love its simplicity. The one-click access to #learning activities allows learners to quickly get into the learning instead of negotiating multiple layers of navigation. This approach is particularly valuable for busy professionals who want to maximise their time. Whether you’re on…
We know that transformation and adaptability are key to organisations thriving and growing. But transformation can be hard. Remaining current though? That’s much easier. Or is it? What is ‘current’ is subject to change, and might not be current in six months’ time. So what does ‘current’ mean for us, and the work we do?…
It’s fascinating to see how organisations are responding differently to the challenge of exploring their relationship with Te Ao Māori. Interest in Te Reo Māori is palpable, and there is a growing recognition that Tikanga Māori is an important demonstration of a commitment to recognising diversity – being inclusive. More and more though we are…
In the last few months, we’ve worked with several clients
to make e-learning modules in Articulate Rise, where previously we would have
used Storyline.
Right now seems a good moment to look back and think about what made Rise the best solution for these projects, how to get the most from it, and what pitfalls exist for the unwary.
So Microlearning is a big deal these days and if you’re still using your Learning Management System (or LMS) and standard e-learning tools to produce SCORM-type learning you’re probably not doing it in the most cost-effective or efficient manner. At Synapsys we’ve teamed up with industry-leading systems to be able to offer great ways to…