Online Flash Training: Creating effective self-paced training

2008-07-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

Online training has become a very popular method of education, whether it is used for training employees on the use of internal software, processes, or even showing customers how to use particular products. By placing training materials on the internet, businesses can significantly reduce printing and distribution costs. Online training is also an effective method for businesses to reduce overhead associated with instructor-led seminars while allowing them to reach a broader worldwide audience.

Besides the cost savings, there is also a great deal of time saved. Training often takes a backseat to normal everyday work activities at companies despite it being vitally important to one’s productivity. It is very difficult and often impractical to interrupt a project to take a week-long training class. Online training offers the flexibility of being self-paced, so that employees can manage time appropriately, keeping important projects on track while also advancing skills for increased productivity.

Upon learning about the advantages of online training, many companies will proceed to upload their training manuals and Power Point presentations online for employees or customers to access only to discover that they are either not being used or are proving to be ineffective. Why is that?

Before answering that question, let’s first discuss the different types of learning. We can all be categorized by one of three types of learners: visual, audio and kinesthetic. Here’s a quick overview:

Visual learners need to see something to learn it and hence, may have trouble focusing on a lecture if there are few visual aids. They tend to remember written directions.
Audio learners are good at remembering what they hear. Lectures therefore may be effective for them regardless of what visual aids are used.
Kinesthetic learners need a hands-on style of learning. They typically don’t need written instructions and may be bored during long lectures.

As human beings, we use all three of these types of learning. However, very few of us are balanced in all three. We tend to be strong in one and weak in the other two. I’m willing to bet you’ve already determined which one you are.

A good instructor-led class uses techniques that reach all three types of learners. There may be an audio lecture with lots of visual aids, followed by a hands-on exercise. Different students may struggle at different times during the class but in the end, the majority will have met their objectives due to this balanced approach.

Likewise, a class with few satisfied students may be due to an instructor relying on one of the three learning styles (perhaps his or her own) and failing to use techniques for the other two.

Online training is no different. By simply placing a written manual or Power Point presentation online, you are really only addressing one style of learning. Even the best Power Point presentations that I’ve seen that may use audio and video clips are still only using two styles. Kinesthetic learning is completely absent.

A powerful online solution for eLearning is Flash, which integrates all of the multimedia elements for all three styles of learning. Thus, you can easily recreate the ideal classroom environment by having audio lectures with plenty of visual aids, followed by hands-on exercises.

Flash is an incredibly powerful medium, so the possibilities for kinesthetic exercises are almost endless. If the subject matter is software or a device of some sort that may be complicated to use, a simulation is an excellent exercise. You can have the Flash exercise look and feel like the software or even a handheld GPS device, allowing the student to make selections and run through various scenarios simulating a real world application. There can even be some additional audio and visual aids to help the student through the exercise.

Perhaps the subject matter isn’t software but a process. You can still allow the student to make a choice and based on the choice, provide different results for a rich, scenario-based learning experience. It’s the same as a software simulation except that the visual cues may be illustrations or audio/video clips instead of screen shots of the software.

The hands-on exercise can also be delivered as a game. While games may sound taboo in the workplace, they can be very powerful learning tools especially for subjects that most people may find dull, such as statistics. By providing real-life scenarios, adding characters and setting forth a challenge, the student will be interested in trying it and will likely complete it successfully.

There are many tools available for creating multimedia-rich Flash online courses. And the great news is that with the right tool and expertise using it, these courses can be cost effective while producing measurable results.

www.crenexus.com

What can Google do for me?

2008-07-12T05:46:00.000-07:00

To be successful on the Internet businesses must have a clear and broad understanding of what Google can do for them. Google is the powerhouse of search engine technology as well as many other online applications. Understanding the ins and outs of this behemoth is vital to your search engine success. "What can Google do for me or my business?" is one of the most frequently asked questions by our clients. It is the reason I've started to write about it here in this blog.

If I'm successful, this blog will be a place of reference and hopefully a place to find and broaden your knowledge of a truly interesting science called Search Engine Optimization; better known as SEO. I hope that you will find it informative and fun. I also hope to encourage you to think about your own current strategy when placing ads or submitting new content to Google or even Yahoo.

So, let's get started.

What is Search Engine Optimization or SEO? In order for you to better understand what SEO is and what it can do for you let's start off with a question. What is Google or better yet what is a search engine? A search engine like google is an application or set of applications that reside on a cluster of servers. Their primary purpose is to index the content of websites found on the Internet. The search engine uses an application called a "spider" to crawl throughout the Internet cataloging and storing the results all of the information it finds. The information it finds can be text, images, blogs (like this one), news items, forums and other types of web-based content found on the Internet. The results are then automatically stored in large, complex databases which then becomes the makeup of the search queries that users type into the search engine seeking specific results and information. Once a query is entered into a search engine a list of corresponding pages is displayed to the user. The list of results has descriptions based on content that was found on a web page and it also has hyperlinks to the individuals web pages that the search engine found in its indexing exercise.

The relevance of the results that are displayed to the user are based on a few important factors. First, results are only as good as the search term that is being searched. When a user searches for something on the web, the search term used is extremely important. For example, when searching for vacation spots in Hawaii it would be a very good idea to use the word "Hawaii" as the search term and not a word like "Brazil". I know. It is common sense but I am trying to make an important point. It is very important to understand that the result of any given search request is only as good as the search term used.

Another important factor required to better understand the relevance of results produced is what is known as organic searches and paid-per-click searches. Organic searches and their corresponding results are produced by millions of people freely searching the Internet everyday typing in search terms or phrases like "Hawaii vacation spots" on Google and Yahoo. It is important to note that these free organic searches and the results are generated by millions of people everyday typing. Google tracks and stores this information and uses complex algorithms to improve rankings and listing results. The more people type a specific term or phrase the more important or relevant the result.

So, right now you may be wondering how do I get my website listed on the top of a results page. Well, it's a simple as $1,$2,$3.. and so on. What I mean is that those placements are reserved by Google for paid-per-click advertisements for clients. These placements get top billing because clients pay Google for their location and it can get expensive. What..? Did you think Google did it all for free out of the goodness of their heart? lol Well, not to worry. Google is worth billions of $$ in revenue from what they generate in pay-per-clicks and they use some of that revenue to fund development of brilliant online and mobile applications that help businesses of every size and shape deploy methods to track the performance of not only their website but even track the performance of a specific advertisement campaigns.

Well, that wraps up this introduction for now. I'll be back with some of the specifics later on how to begin placing your site out on the Internet and start tracking results.

CreNexus

Online Flash Training: Creating effective self-paced training

What can Google do for me?