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Exciting features of Totara v18
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…
Synapsys take on big L&D trends for 2024
TrainingIndustry.com have identified three big L&D trends for 2024. Here’s our take on them, and a couple of others you may want to consider as well. 1. AI, EI, and growth mindset take centre stage. It’s difficult to disagree with the idea that responding to AI, building emotional intelligence, and having a growth mindset (being…
Navigating AI Challenges in Workplace Learning – podcast
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
🌟 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,…
Synapsys Hacks: Keeping the ‘micro’ in microlearning
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’…
The SOLO Taxonomy; finding the Goldilocks Zone for learning activities
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…
How long does it take? – Navigating learning design timeframes
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…
The Curse of Knowledge
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…
Unlocking Strategic Potential: From Self-Management Strategies to Cultural Transformation
This article https://hbr.org/2018/06/if-strategy-is-so-important-why-dont-we-make-time-for-it notes that many leaders struggle to prioritise time for strategic thinking, and proposes a series of self-management strategies to ‘make the time’. When we think about learning programmes we’ve developed that are truly strategic in their focus, we think it’s dubious that the main driver has been the personal management strategies…
Using Animation in E-Learning Design: Engage, Delight, and Educate Your Learners
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…
Constraints, used properly, are the true drivers of innovation.
Constraints, used properly, are the true drivers of innovation. We always take the time early in the design process to establish a project’s real constraints and goals. Goals are great; they help us get clear on what we’re doing – they feel good. Constraints can be frustrating. They limit our thinking and sometimes mean exciting…
The Importance of User Testing
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…
5 tips to kick off a foolproof learning project
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…
Matariki – te Mātahi o te Tau
Matariki, the Māori New Year, is a special time when people, whānau, and communities come together to commemorate the past year, celebrate the present, and make plans for the upcoming year. It is a time for honouring the memories of our loved ones who are no longer with us, indulging in feasts and festivities with…
Learning Objectives as a House Design Metaphor
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…
RNZCGP enhances learning experience for registrars with Totara TXP16
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…
Representing Bicultural New Zealand: Insights from Maire Smith on APEC 2021
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…
The limits of visual working memory and how we apply it in learning design
We all know that our ability to keep multiple things in our mind is limited. Four things is a common benchmark, and the article “When four is not four, but rather two plus two” suggests it might actually be two on each side of our brain. And yet we see so many learning experiences ignoring…
Need to get out of a Pickle?
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?…
Supporting Farmlands Co-operative with their transformation
Farmlands Co-operative is taking their employees’ development and growth to the next level with a whole new learning experience to be rolled out this year, and it starts with Totara 17. We couldn’t be more thrilled to be partnering with them and support their vision to become reality as they roll out new functionality this…
Articulate’s new microlearning option in Rise 360!
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…
Ready to start a more formal learning journey?
It’s always great to connect with like-minded leaders about supporting the development of their teams. We had a great chat to Matthew Hayter from Projectworks about the connection between learning, capability and performance. Why people learn is always a personal decision to a degree; progressive organisations understand that the old boundaries between work and personal…
Bringing our Stands to Life
At Synapsys, our Stands reflect both how we think and are the main drivers of the work that we do. Our Stands are what we believe in and what guide us as individuals and as a business. So what are they? Whakarerekē whaitikanga – we stand for meaningful change and the discipline to execute it….
The role learning plays in transformation
“Since I joined Synapsys a few months ago,” says Jo Parag, our General Manager Customer and Client Relationship Manager, “I have come to appreciate our positioning line of ‘Learn to Transform’. On the surface it’s a simple statement but dig a little deeper and the complexity and strength of this statement for both our clients…
So where does our story begin?
At Synapsys, our name and our brand tell our story. We think of the synapses in the brain as the spark of creative thought, but they are also central to how we remember, and how we tell our body to take action. Synapsys stands for creative thought and action – we have a meaningful impact by…
We have some big news!
Synapsys’ very own Learning Design Lead, Maire Smith has been selected as a Judge for the upcoming New Zealand Association of Training and Development (NZATD) Awards! In being selected, Maire is being recognised for her significant contribution to learning – did you know that she has even been a recipient of an NZATD award in the…
Have you heard of Au Consulting?
Au Consulting are leaders when it comes to implementing cultural change here in Aotearoa. Using the combined strategic, cultural and educational expertise of their consultants, Au Consulting are able to support and guide organisations to connect more authentically with Te Ao Māori. Synapsys recently worked with Au Consulting on the creation of several micro modules and…
The latest Pickled cases are live!
Maybe you want to help a farmer spraying gorse on a steep slope, or you might be keen to assist Tate and his team with a bit of welding in an online game? Back in 2019, Synapsys partnered with Worksafe New Zealand to develop the learning design for an online game suite that would help…
Bite-Sized Learning Solutions
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…
Practical Microlearning
Microlearning isn’t just about taking your large learning objects or courses and breaking them into smaller ones. Microlearning is small but self-contained pieces of learning. With our fast paced world and lack of time to spend more than a few minutes learning before performing tasks, microlearning is a must-have for most modern businesses. The problem…