Friday, December 30, 2011

Seven Steps Toward a Successful Online Training Session

Flexibility and ease of accessibility have made online learning widely accepted in various kinds of learning environment. With a host of online tools and in-built features, the software products allow organizers to deliver value-oriented training sessions without investing much manual work or spending high operational costs. At present, a myriad of corporate and academic training organizations are using Class Management Software products to set up virtual classes in an error-free manner.

Class management software helps organizers arrange successful classes online, while eliminating the hassles of managing a class in a traditional way. The advanced software products are often integrated with popular learning management systems that help you conduct a successful training session without any face-to-face interaction between teachers and the students.

Create Custom Registration Forms

Create custom registration forms using the tools offered by such software, so that students can register online 24x7. Customize the form with banners, logos, and images of your firm using the relevant features of the software. Such software automates the entire procedure and thus, makes the registration process easier for both the students and the organizers.

Accept Payments Seamlessly and Safely

These software products are featured with PCI-compliant payment platform that facilitates safe and secured transaction. Organizers can now accept fees through PayPal, Credit Cards, checks, Purchase Orders, and so on. Payment processing through such platform helps to avoid fraudulent transactions and streamlines the processing of refunds and chargeback requests easily. The entire process helps you track payment status, revenues, refunds, and credits collected over a period of time.

Communicate Online

Such software products come with a host of online communication tools that helps you send email notifications about the upcoming class to the prospective students. Thus, you can avoid the hassles of time-consuming postal service and can reach out to maximum number of students within a short time. Apart from these, you can also send newsletters, bulletins, and various course materials to the students through email.

Schedule Class through Online Calendar

You can schedule your online class now with the help of the online calendaring features offered by such software. It offers a detailed view of the classes, thus providing your students with the convenience of choosing the class they want to attend.

Manage Waitlist to Ensure Full Attendance

Students can also opt for various waitlist options, so that no seat remains empty. The process helps organizers fill up the seats, even if there is some cancellation at the last minute.

Promote Your Classes/Training Solutions Extensively

The software products for managing a class help organizers use the promotional modules for promoting their online class to a large number of audiences within a short time. Promoting the online classes through various social networking sites and maintaining a blog can help you ensure high attendance at your class.

Create Post-class Certificate for Students

Create customized certificates for students along with their credit marks without any manual intervention. It streamlines the process of collecting credit marks for each student and thus, saves time. Once the certificates are created, you can send these to respective students via email.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

How Benefits of Taking College Classes Online?

Each year, millions of fresh, young graduates join the countless number of individuals looking for employment. Competing for a position in almost any type of company is tough; even tougher when you are one of the few college dropouts among a sea of degree holders. With so many more-qualified (at least, academically) individuals fiercely vying for the same spot you are eyeing, you may find yourself asking, "Do I even have a chance?"

Truth be told, your chances of landing that job are slim to none. Forget what you have heard about college dropouts becoming billionaires; your chances of also becoming one-just like your chances of getting hired by a high-paying company even as an undergrad-are slim to none.

To increase the probability of a decent employer considering you as a likely candidate for a desirable job position, you have to earn that degree. If you are hesitant to do so because you know it would be tough to keep a job and send yourself to school at the same time, then you might want to consider taking online college classes.

Here are a few reasons why taking an online college course is much more practical for you than enrolling in your local college or university:

1. It costs less.

Though not all online courses are cheaper compared to that of a traditional school, there are numerous online programs that charge lesser tuition fees. On top of that, there would be no need for you to spend money on pricey text books or fare just like you would when you choose to go to a local school. Because you study from home and modules, assignments, and exams can be downloaded from the Internet, overall costs normally associated with going to a traditional school are greatly minimized.

2. It offers flexibility.

Taking online college courses is just much more convenient as you can study at your own pace. Though assignments and tests are still to be completed or taken by a specific deadline, you still get to choose when you can take them - can be days before or even just hours prior to the deadline.

3. It allows you to balance work and school at the same time.

Finally pursuing a degree does not mean you have to leave your current job. The beauty of taking online classes for college is that you can go to school and work at the same time. Sure, going to a traditional school and keeping your day job is doable but conflict of schedule will arise sooner or later, and will just cause you frustration and exhaustion.

4. It allows for specialized degree programs.

Most local colleges will require you to take elective classes. You may find this a waste of time and money as most of these classes are not related to your major. The beauty of taking online classes for college is that you get to choose to skip subjects that are not compulsory, allowing you to finish your degree faster.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

How Can You Still Play Sports in Cyber School?

An uncharacteristically sunny day in October; A tennis tournament in Pennsylvania, approximately 8:30 a.m. Third and final set in a semi-finals tennis game.

If we just get this one last point we will make it to the finals.

The other team serves the ball to me. I messed up. Shoot!

If we miss this point then the other team has a good chance at catching up and winning.

She serves to my partner. My partner hits the ball. It goes down the alleys. The other girl sprints to the ball. She's so close. She...She...Missed it!

My tennis partner and I have just made it to the finals and knocked out a really good team!

That was one of those moments that I don't think I'll be forgetting anytime soon! It was an awesome moment where my tennis partner and I got to the finals in a tennis competition. The funny thing is that this was both our first year on varsity and our first time in a competition that a lot of our competition had been to a couple years now. We weren't even seeded! We were definitely the upset in the competition.

Sadly we lost in the finals, but we still got medals! So really we won. Also the girls we played against in the finals were very nice, and so we were happy for them even though they beat us.

Sports have a funny way like that. They teach us tremendous lessons in life; Lessons like how to accept defeat, how to work with a team, how to have confidence in your abilities and how to keep a clear head in the midst of desperation. This is especially prevalent in sports like tennis, golf or volleyball where strategy is about 95% of the game.

I've always played sports, whether it is soccer, cheer leading, lacrosse, volleyball or gymnastics. Many of the ones I played not being very competitive or long, but they are all things I've tried. Without sports I would be different. I wouldn't have learned how to work with a team or even have as much confidence as I do now (just a side note confidence is actually an extremely important part of sports that not many people think of).

Sports can be an important part of young life. So the question is can you still play sports when you are doing cyber school? The answer (in most cases) is yes! This year I was able to play tennis even though I am in cyber school. It's helpful that I am in a cyber school through the school that I played for, but even if that's not the case you can still usually play sports for a school district.

Of course some schools may have different rules for this, but every school I have come in contact with welcomes cyber school and home school students to play on their sports teams and get involved.

The only problem that doing sports in cyber school can put you out of the loop on cancellations, delays and other things they announce in school. I would call the school a lot asking them if they had heard if tennis was cancelled or not due to rain. I expected them to one day pick up the phone and say, "No Kelly, there is no practice today."

It wasn't way too big of a problem, but one time I did come late to a practice. You see it was a game day and raining. So I called the school and they told me the game was cancelled, but apparently sometime after I called there was an announcement that we would still be having practice because the rain had stopped. Long story short I got there, and then about ten minutes later they cancelled it because it had started to rain again.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

irtual Learning Environment Addresses Various Training Needs

Virtual classes seem to be the ruling trend in the learning and development industry. With the growing needs to reduce infrastructural and operational budgets, many organizations are trying to take their training sessions online. The concept of such form of learning refers to the delivery of training in a collaborative virtual environment. The participants of the training program are involved through the effective utilization of a variety of virtual platform and other communication tools, such as social media chat, Webcasts, and video.

What are the Advantages of Virtual Learning?

The primary advantage of virtual training is that it helps you reach out to a large number of learners residing in various geographical locations at the same time. Thus, it involves active participation by trainers and other experts. Representing a dramatic paradigm shift in enterprise and social behavior, people are increasingly depending on internet as it offers the convenience of working remotely. Mobile devices are becoming increasingly popular.

According to the experts, participants are more likely to attend a virtual conference than an in-person one. Similarly, students nowadays are more likely to take part in a virtual learning environment, as they can learn as per their convenience in such an event.

Virtual learning technologies are viable and cost-effective alternatives to cater to the diverse requirements of training, continuing, and professional education. They offer a highly interactive and customizable platform and 3-D and networking techniques for creating environments to cater to the training and learning needs.
In addition, a virtual learning environment offers increased engagement of both the attendees and the instructors. According to the statistics, participants' involvement and attention rates are significantly higher with a virtual e-learning environment than the traditional method.

How Teaching in an Online Environment can be Successful

Here, we have come up with the key points that can make your virtual training session a successful one.
User-friendly Interface: Make sure that the participants are not required to "click" the mouse more than twice to access their course content. Remember, if they feel any inconvenience in accessing the course material, they may leave your training page halfway.

Let them utilize social networking websites: Offering participants an outlet to interact with their peers allow them to share their views and keep them engaged.

Develop interesting content for the meeting: Interesting course content has always been an important tool for a successful virtual training session. You can hire subject matter experts (SMEs) to create and develop interesting industry-specific content to engage the students.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

What Are the Benefits of Hosting K12 Classes Over the Cloud?

Cloud computing is one of the latest technologies that internet users around the world utilize to easily manage and deliver webinars, meetings, events, and classes online. It lets you access courses, classes, and training programs at anytime and from anywhere across the globe. Organizations find cloud computing extremely user-friendly, as it provides flexibility and offers cost-effective ways to arrange events and corporate training sessions online. Many K12 educational institutes are also leveraging cloud computing techniques to offer 24X7 learning opportunity to their potential pupils.

Let's now discuss some of the key benefits of hosting K12 classes over the cloud.

Flexibility

Cloud-based K12 classes offer flexibilities to both the class organizers and the learners, thus making the learning process enchanting. Educators as well as the prospective students can easily access catalogs, class schedules, examination details, and evaluation sheets 24x7 by using internet and mobile devices. School or college staff can access the files and registration or payment data easily, even when they are working from their home or outside office hours. Moreover, flexible, Cloud-based applications can be easily expanded or scaled down according to your business demands.

Easy-to-use

You don't have to learn high-end programming to conduct classes via a Cloud-based class registration and management solution. Any non-technical person can start organizing courses or training programs using such online software's.

Cost-effective System

Cloud computing is often lower cost and less labor-intensive than using pen and paper to run a class. An online and automated class registration system helps organizations save money that would have been used on buying papers and renting staff in case a manual procedure was followed. Cloud-based nature of the solution ensures that you don't have to buy any costly software or hardware. Hence, organizing K12 classes using the cloud computing technology will help you conduct courses/trainings at a limited budget.

Unlimited Storage Facility

Cloud-based applications offer unlimited storage capacity compared to a hard drive or floppy disk. Not only small institutes, but large-scale educational organizations can also use Cloud-based services to store valuable data securely without paying any monthly fee. Besides, such applications lead to the automatic updating of the central database of records, leading to the smooth running of your daily administrative work.

Environment-friendly

Online services are environment-friendly, as they help in reducing the use of paper. Moreover, even a huge multinational organization like Microsoft has stated about how cloud computing can reduce an organization's carbon emissions by as much as 30% since businesses don't need to maintain a huge server - they can pay for the software or solutions that they use.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

How Has Technology Enriched Online Education?

Are you aspiring for a better education or a better future? Are you tired of attending classes of your college or university? Here comes the solution. With the progress of technology, online education has taken its birth and it is of immense help to young adults and working people. It should always be remembered that education is not a compulsive duty. It should rather be taken with enthusiasm and joyful mood. It is only through education that people get employed in different sectors and make a bright future.

All these years you have been using the internet for shopping, downloading songs or videos, booking travel tickets and so on. Google, the most important search engine is of great help and with the help of this; you can educate yourself with the fast growth of technology. Most men choose their career path in online degrees or diplomas.

School or college education is discouraging

To some people, education from a regular institute can appear to be boring. The monotony of attending lectures, facing of punishments given by teachers or professors is really discouraging. When a student fails to complete his assignments, he gets rebuked by his teacher and harsh words are showered upon him. In this way his dream to fulfill his academic goal gets shattered.

There are many suicidal attempts that a school going kid often makes. Often you will find such shocking news of a student's suicidal acts in the morning newspaper. An online education ensures total independence and there is a lot of fun involved in it. So do you want to make your child?-a nagging school or college goer or a competent online learner?

YouTube has showered blessings on educational arena

There are different YouTube channels coming up which will help you in educating yourself. These are TED talks, Biography Channel, The Nobel Prize, PBS, Discovery Channel and many more. These serve as free lectures on various subjects and you can gain a lot of knowledge.

How can online MBA be advantageous?

MBA or Master in Business Administration is a post graduate degree or diploma in management studies. When a student applies to a regular B-school, he cannot afford the high fees involved in such education. Hence online MBA is very demanding and you need not submit huge fees to pursue such a degree. Also, this type of MBA comprises the same courses as offered by a regular institution. An individual can also continue a job along with his studies and can shoulder social responsibilities.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Why Online Education Takes a Big Leap?

Your home, office, or other place is not your college or study place, but it can certainly be your classroom. Online education took a big leap with the help of world's best teachers and visualizers to take great lessons beyond the classroom to anyone with internet access. In other words, if you are a great teacher, you can take your best lessons or tutorials beyond your classroom and be viewed by millions of students.

The new wave in media usage is being boosted by smartphones, tablets, and PCs, which is gradually seen impacting the way content is being created and distributed as well.

With a competent option, online media has every possibility of becoming a great option for education and training. What is at stake here is the character of the e-learning.

20th century the age of information technology, online education is becoming a principles of delivering teaching to individuals outside the classroom, as well as on the globe. Teaching can be using Compact Disc, Digital textbooks, websites, or via real-time online facilities such as webcasts, webinars and virtual classrooms. However, different methods of online education each have their own advantages.

Digital textbooks are any books that can be downloaded to an e-reader or computer or those that can be read online using a Web browser. Technology which makes you more eager to learn from anywhere at any time, without using your important time. Easy to use with pan drive, download content or e-books at your hard drive and use with your possible option.

Rapid Online Learning Growth.

How are the dynamics of the market changing? Is there any new trend that you see?

With India's economic growth fuelling the last decade, the country's education needs have gone up tremendously. Digitisation is the way forward for supporting online teaching and online learning.

Benefits of Online Education

Online education system serving students that no on else can accommodate. This may include athletes who travel, students who have been bullied and no longer feel comfortable in a traditional classroom. Current times need access to different types of classes to learn diverse skills for their future jobs.