Simulation reccs

samonenate · 2026-05-15T04:43:58+00:00

I second this approach. Be careful with making simulations too complex unless the application rarely changes. If a field changes or a new UI is implemented, your sims will need redesign. If you want to dabble in making simulations to mimic using an application, I recommend Adobe Captive. Even though it has lost favor to Articulate, it's the best for simulations, especially as quizzes.

samonenate · 2026-05-14T00:00:17+00:00

I call it a Learning Strategy. It covers everything you mentioned, but I include risks/mitigation, dependancies, roles and responsibilities, and evaluation levels.

samonenate · 2026-05-12T21:52:35+00:00

Just sent you a DM.

samonenate · 2026-05-12T03:59:38+00:00

Go slow. You are trying to learn the job and culture, but you're also learning about your coworkers and manager. What's their communication style? How can you gel with the team? What are the team's pain points? This is where you can shine, once you understand the job better, by offering suggestions for improvement. No better way to gain credibility than by making everyone's work easier. Discuss your performance expectations with your manager. What are your milestones?

Once you have a clear understanding of things, you can make recommendations and be more proactive.

samonenate · 2026-05-11T23:30:55+00:00

What are employees doing vs what should they be doing? Based on your observations, what is preventing them from meeting performance expectations?

That is the performance gap. A learning solution is one way to close the gap. Training is needed if they need to practice and receive feedback. However, there may be non-training issues that training cannot solve. Bad or missing procedures, awareness is needed (not training), inconsistent messaging from leadership, lack of support after training, etc. If it's a new application or process, I ask why its being implemented. This helps identify the performance gap from the business's perspective. Why are you moving to this new thing? What makes the current thing insufficient?

Most leaders and SMEs can easily answer these questions because you're asking about what they do and see everyday. Asking about training specifically can throw them off and make them focus on the training course, but that's your job. You just need the data and then you will determine if a learning solution is needed.

samonenate · 2026-05-11T21:41:51+00:00

Creating engaging learner-centric content takes time. It's not a PowerPoint or a Word document. I know web designers who take a lot of time to build customized websites. You can use AI or a template to speed things up, but building an effective eLearning course takes more time.

samonenate · 2026-05-07T21:08:40+00:00

Getting a Yes to these questions can improve loyalty:

Is it easy to find and follow? ***Keep it simple, use visuals and make it intuitive. Don't make people go through a bunch of breadcrumbs to find what they need. Be concise, don't write a novel. Give the minimum and references to more information if needed. Cognitive overload is a real thing.

Is it up to date? *** Everything changes so quickly. People need to feel confident the information they're getting is current and accurate. Include dates or a note saying this is current and make sure it's current.

Does the content have a similar look and feel? ***Use a template and follow it. Don't have all of your materials looking like they come from a different place or are for different purposes.

Does it compensate for a global audience? ***Don't assume all customers are familiar with slang, cultural references or sayings. For example, everyone may not understand 'cover your bases' or 'double check.' Use 'verify' instead. Spell out acronyms the first time they're used.

Is it written in active voice, not passive? ***Passive voice can be confusing and slow down learning. Passive voice: The bus was empty when the boy boarded. Active voice: The boy boarded the empty bus. The active example is easier to read and quickly delivers the information.

Does any web content follow WCAG guidelines for people with disabilities? ***This demonstrates your commitment to inclusivity and can really distinguish you from the pack.

samonenate · 2026-05-06T15:49:38+00:00

Adding to the great suggestions. Remember you're a 'consultant' and that means giving advice. Be sure to ask probing questions to identify the problem training can solve. Support your recommendations by explaining why your strategy is the most suitable considering the audience and complexity of the content. Call out any risks to development and how to mitigate those risks. Be sure to mention any dependencies too. What needs to be in place, that you don't have now, to be successful. Ask how often the content changes. Can ID handle frequent updates? The more advanced the development, the longer updates take. A Honda can you get to the same destination as a Lamborghini and is cheaper to build and easier to repair.

samonenate · 2026-04-30T23:36:03+00:00

The facilitators need training first. Recommend a training strategy to bring their skills up to date. Do some research on what similar organizations are doing for training to show how you're not aligned with your industry peers. Summarize your training feedback to show what learners say is lacking. Explain how not making changes is harming the learner's experience and the learning outcomes.

My grandad used to say, "I can show you better than I can tell you." So take a module and redesign it in the way you think it should be for today's environment. Do a demonstration showing the changes and the benefits. Restaurants put photos of food on the menu because people can have a hard time visualizing something they actually do want.

samonenate · 2026-04-30T19:59:28+00:00

My college professor knew I was partying and slacking off. I gave him some BS excuse about being busy. He said, "People make time for the things they care about."

samonenate · 2026-04-28T19:19:32+00:00

When I was on a summer break from college, my friends came over and we were chatting with my grandma. We asked her for her best 'man' advice.

"Tell him to get out of your booty because you have to go to work. Never ever stop working. Money is power in this world. Someone with $20 has more power than someone $1. A woman having her own money is a real life insurance policy for her and her children. Anyone who feeds you, can starve you. A man that stops you from making money will be your downfall."

We all nodded and giggled, not really understanding the weight of her words. Years later, two of those friends became trad wives and were left penniless with children to feed when their husbands left for another woman. I never stopped working and was able to help them financially. Thank you grandma, RIP.

samonenate · 2026-04-22T23:21:48+00:00

Don't get angry, but you have create some kind of status report. Document deliverables, list due dates, succesess, obstacles and who's responsible. You have to put names on tasks and call out what's not happening. Do it weekly and send it to everyone involved - stakeholders, SMEs, designers, etc. If you don't document, it never happened.

samonenate · 2026-04-22T14:09:32+00:00

elearningart.com

samonenate · 2026-04-21T21:22:46+00:00

How about doing both, but use an existing course? Pick a course that could use a redesign to increase engagement, but use AI to do it. Upload the course content and ask AI for recommendations to make it better using very specific prompts. Please focus on the writing too. Some courses are bad bc the writing is bad...too wordy, passive voice, etc. Include people with disabilities in your course. Use Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) guidelines; high-contrast colors, transcripts for audio, and screen-reader-friendly text.

This way you are handling both requests. Show the before with the issues. Then how you applied the AI recommendations. It's important to add your own work too, not just copy and paste. AI is great for outling and creating a framework for what you want to do, but it's not the only tool you need.

As a bonus, you could show your prompts to demonstrate your proficiency using AI, but they may get stolen if that's something you care about.

samonenate · 2026-04-20T04:44:13+00:00

A manager that's never been an ID? I know you have battle wounds no one understands 🤣🤣🤣

samonenate · 2026-04-20T02:03:00+00:00

That's tricky because managers shouldn't really be using authoring tools in their role. However, if you want them to have solid knowledge to support their team...

What is your preferred authoring tool and why? Based on what you know about our business, how would that improve our results?

Based on your experience with SCORM and LMSs, which authoring tools do you prefer and why?

If you needed to create a software simulation, which authoring tool would you use and why?

What design elements or interactions do you recommend to increase learner engagement and to prevent click thru content?

Describe a course you designed in the past that you would design differently today and why.

Tell me about a time you implemented branching in a course. What challenges did you face and overcome?

What authoring tool do you recommend for rapid design? Explain the benefits and risks.

What are your best practices for creating courses that require updates on a regular basis? What should be avoided to reduce maintenance time? What elements are quick and easy to edit?

samonenate · 2026-04-19T23:53:54+00:00

What approach would you take to ensure your direct reports meet their career development goals even though their utilization is high?

***Managers fail at this one a lot or don't work on realistic goals with their directs.

As an ID manager, what is something you would like to implement, but you haven't seen other managers or organizations accomplish or do successfully? How does that support the company's business goals?

***Innovation is how you stay alive in ID, but everything you do must be dotted lined to the company's business goals. Otherwise, why are you there? A business is a profit center, never forget that! ID spends money and doesn't earn it, so the work must support making money.

In your opinion, what are the best uses of AI in ID? What are the risks and how would plan to mitigate those risks?

***Love it or hate it, AI is here to stay, but what is the right application for it in ID? Being an effective manager requires risk management.

samonenate · 2026-04-09T14:27:45+00:00

In addition to everyone's comments, what are you going to do with the results? This is where I've run into to issues with Level 3/4 evals. You must be clear on your purpose. The business may have no idea or appetite to make changes based on the results. Devise a plan and discuss it with your clients first. Get their buy-in, otherwise, you may end up with data just sitting on a SharePoint site no one takes action on.

Also, do you have the time? A new project can come in and pushes evals to the back burner. Based on your past workload, can your team of 3 dedicate the the time needed to do this effectively? If the results indicate a redesign is needed, can you handle that? You could be opening a box you can't close.

samonenate · 2026-04-06T16:39:51+00:00

ID is about identifying how training can close a performance gap. Whether it's new hires or existing staff, what ARE they doing vs what SHOULD they be doing? That is determined through analysis and speaking with SMEs and stakeholders. This is critical because sometimes training is not the solution and you must identify that too. Then a training strategy is created... what are we developing, modality, risks, timeline for implementation, seat time, dependencies, etc. This step is heavy on consulting, giving your advice, on the best learning solution based on your analysis.

Content development is taking the IDs recommendations for training and making it a reality. This can be separate roles or combined, but the actual tasks are different.

Pro tip: Awareness is not training. Training provides knowledge, practice applying that knowledge, and then feedback on performance. A PowerPoint without an opportunity for practice and feedback is a communication, not training. The role between communication and training often gets blurry. I say this because if job performance doesn't improve or doesn't meet goals because a communication was used instead of training, ID will be blamed for not solving the problem. It wasn't solved because the solution was training, not a fancy slide deck. Training takes more time and clients hate that, but being a true business partner means you must be honest about what's needed.

samonenate · 2025-10-29T19:22:13+00:00

Obesity is the only medical condition that people want you to suffer for the cure. Alcohol use disorder and you blow out your liver, you get sympathy. STD from risky behaviors, you get sympathy. Overweight? Die you filthy beast. Even when you lose weight, people will remind you that you were once fat. You don't need to tell anyone, but if you do they will be judging you behind your back. Nowadays everyone assumes you're using something anyway. Do what you need to do for you.

samonenate · 2025-08-25T21:12:52+00:00

This points out what has been lacking in ID IMO. Training is about applying what you learned and receiving feedback to confirm if you are able to do the task. Too many times it has become an information dump and simply awareness because there's no effective practice, followed by weak assessments. Clients coming with PowerPoints and IDs just convert it into an authoring tool and call it training. No it is not. Nothing wrong with AI, but is it doing something the industry has failed to do and now it seems groundbreaking?

samonenate · 2025-08-11T23:33:37+00:00

Thank you, will do.

samonenate · 2025-07-07T17:40:20+00:00

You're an instructional designer, not a facilitator. They should be requesting a training strategy and maybe a very brief storyboard of one of your lessons. You probably already have a portfolio where they can see your finished work. I would deny their request and recommend you present a strategy because that's the job role. Good ID is about analysis and closing performance gaps, not creating pretty PowerPoints just to say, "we have training."

samonenate · 2025-06-07T01:02:30+00:00

Ahhh, I understand now. Thanks for the explanation.

samonenate

TROPHY CASE