Synapsys Blog - November 2003

Our Partner, Hand Multimedia, Makes News!

This article about Hand Multimedia discusses their novel approaches to Macromedia Authorware development that really simplify the way projects are put together.

http://www.canterburysoftware.org.nz/current.htm#feature1

Simulations for Learning

Clark Aldrich is the author of a recent book, Simulations and the Future of Learning, in which he discusses how to leverage simulations as learning tools. In this Q&A article, he clears up some misconceptions about simulations (they needn't be complicated nor expensive!) and elaborates on their potential.

We're doing some work with simulations for a couple of clients of ours at the moment, so we find this stuff quite interesting.

http://www.elearningpost.com/features/archives/002199.asp

Real-life Lessons About eLearning

This is a fascinating summary of a talk given by Damien Faughan, Charles Schwab's Director of Infrastructure & Technology, at the eLearning Producer conference. Damien frankly discussed lessons the large financial services company has learned about eLearning over the last several years, including issues related to technology, reusability, learner motivation, blended learning, etc.

These lessons learned really substantiate many of the principles we espouse at Synapsys, for instance: "At the end of the day, all learning needs to be strategic and transformational, learner-centered and focused on contributing to the business."

http://www.internettime.com/blog/archives/001021.html

Personas Development

This is one of the best articles we've seen on the development of personas. If you're unfamiliar with the term, 'personas' are a tool used by software/web and educational designers to better understand their target audiences. It is an excellent way for the entire development or training team to visualise the individuals for whom they are building solutions.

At Synapsys, we take the paradigm a step further, leveraging the personas to create scenarios that inform our planning process. This article isn't training-specific, but quite useful nonetheless.

http://www.infotoday.com/online/jul03/head.shtml

Blended Learning Boosts Productivity

A new study by NetG shows that blended learning can offer a substantial improvement on productivity over methods that employ just one delivery option:

http://www.learningcircuits.org/2003/mar2003/newsbytes.html#1

Synapsys Presentation on Educational Design

This is a presentation that we delivered to the Association of Technical Communicators in Christchurch, New Zealand on October 31st, 2003.

Many of the topics sparked lively conversation, particularly those related to leveraging opportunities like learning games for populations of learners who aren't motivated by traditional methods.

Download the presentation (right-click this link to save it to your hard drive)

Managing the Synchronous Blend

This Learning Circuits article focuses on leveraging technology to create the best blend of synchronous training events (face-to-face, virtual classrooms, video conferences, etc.). Perhaps most importantly, it addresses the issue of facilitation, a powerful learning tool that is often overlooked when organisations opt to pursue eLearning approaches.

"The right blend creates a learning process rather than individual events with a common theme. Each segment of the blend is equally important and relevant. Make sure the design communicates to participants that their individual success depends on them completing each step of the process."

http://www.learningcircuits.com/2003/oct2003/hofmann.htm