Steps to Make Live Virtual Training Programs Highly Interactive

There are people who say virtual training programs can be less communicative compared to traditional face-to-face sessions. However, this is not actually true. You can make your offsite training via cyberspace highly interactive and engaging by constantly keeping interesting and the participants occupied with virtual activities.

Let's discuss some of the ways by which you can enhance the attendee participation level.

Encourage Attendees to Be Participative

Encourage trainees to be communicative. Tell them to ask questions and seek clarifications, if any. When you allow them to be active, they will understand the program and their roles in your organization with more clarity and depth.

Incorporate Slide Shows

Try to design slide shows and presentations to use them in your training sessions. Slide shows act as a great learning medium since they can visually explain points rather than just through texts or verbal discussions. You can insert attractive images and texts in these presentations to make the training program more appealing and engaging.

Introduce Text Chat Feature

Connect with the attendees via text chatting. Through messaging, people can discuss and share their thoughts and ideas with you. They can also converse about various after-training activity opportunities with the trainer or amongst the participants.

Take Polls

Conducting polls can be a great way to keep the attendees occupied before or during a class. However, you need to be prepared with polling questions before taking the program online. Through such pre or post-event polls, you will get to know about people's expectations from your events and whether you have succeeded in fulfilling them or not. You can even ask people the reason behind an answer or suggestion. In this way, you can involve the participants by incorporating their feedback thereby making them an important component in the planning of your next training program.

Create Online Community/Forums

It is a great idea to set up online communities or forums to allow a group of people or participants to chat, discuss, and share relevant learning materials and training documents with each other. A major advantage of having these online forums is that they can keep the attendees engaged, 24x7 and foster a feeling of team work and business development.

Include Interactive Games

You can always incorporate some interactive games in between hectic training schedules for the purpose of relaxation. You can search for such virtual games on Google and use them as a part of your business strategy. One example can be arranging a memory game to test the IQ of your trainees. It will add loads of fun elements into your training program.

Jonathan is a professional trainer. He employs latest technology for online class registration and online training registration that results in more attendance and ROI.

A Shifting Higher Education Market

New trends, learning platforms and enrollment numbers trigger boom in online education

Higher education is in the midst of a revolution. Students have direct control of their education as online learning rapidly replaces the traditional classroom learning environment. From enhanced educational access to flexible course schedules, adult learners flock to this new learning platform to earn a college education on their own terms. The statistics illustrate a growing trend away from the classroom and toward online education.

Breaking Down Online Education by the Numbers

In the early stages of distance learning, traditional colleges and universities often avoided this emerging learning platform. However, once enrollment numbers proved online education's lasting presence and profitability, traditional colleges and universities soon began to migrate many of their degree programs to this remote platform.

The numbers in distance learning show growth throughout the higher education market. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), an organization designed to collect and analyze data related to education, has measured the growth of online education over the past decade. According to an NCES study, the number of students enrolled in at least one online college course increased from 1.1 million to 12.2 million between 2002 and 2006.The Ambient Institute, a research firm, projects the number of students enrolled in at least one online course will grow to 22 million in the next five years. The Ambient Institute predicts a large increase in students who choose to earn their college degree completely online, estimating that 3.55 million students will soon take all of their college courses online.

The most jarring data, however, compares online growth rates to the decline of traditional on-campus enrollment. Data collected by the Ambient Institute predicts the number of students who take all of their courses on campus will drop to 5.14 million by 2014. The Sloan Consortium suggests the growth of online education far exceeds the growth of higher education overall. Perhaps this explains why 65.5 percent of all chief academic officers surveyed in a Sloan Consortium poll reported "online education is critical to the long-term strategy" of higher education institutions. Online education has the power to reach students outside of the traditional college demographic, which opens up career opportunities to a new group of professionals.

A New Age in Higher Education

Enrollment in online degree programs at colleges and universities across the country has exploded, necessitating more resources for this remote learning platform. However, while higher education administrators value enrollment numbers because they equate to revenue, online students place more concern on the quality of education offered online. Most online courses, like those at King College, mirror their on-campus counterparts and are facilitated by experienced professionals who believe in the power of online learning. This acceptance of online learning continues to grow among academics. The Sloan Consortium reported that 67 percent of academic leaders rated online education as the same or superior to face-to-face learning - a 10 percent increase since the first report published in 2003.

New technology and resources continue to broaden and advance the scope of online learning. From enhanced communication forums to the use of blended programs to utilize both online and on-campus resources, colleges and universities increasingly integrate online learning into their course offerings to provide students with a full range of higher education choices.

Mobile Learning - A Better Way of Learning

In today's competitive world, it is important for the organizations to train and groom their employees as per the changing market scenario. A well-informed organization develops at a fast pace as its employees are at par with the developments in the market. In order to keep the employees abreast of the changes and developments all the organizations organize periodic training sessions. The mode of training is different some of the organizations still employ traditional training methods and others have switched on to online training methods. Unlike off-the-job training, the online training process is more interactive and fulfilled. Many of the organizations are not able to bear the costs incurred for online training modules; these organizations can outsource their e-learning development requirement to the off shoring companies.

The companies which are engaged in developing e-learning training modules, before developing the content, visit the organization of the client can try to understand their needs. The needs of every organization is different therefore, the training module must be industry specific. This need of industry specific content gave rise to custom-learning. Organizations like banking and finance, life sciences, retail and software and IT are effectively utilizing the online training programs. The online service providers of the training module concentrate on the loopholes of the organization and develop the content accordingly. Thus, the training module helps in proper growth and development of the employees.

Mobile learning has further revolutionized the training process by enabling the training content accessible by these handy devices. There is no time restriction and support of trainers is also not required. Individuals can access the training material as and when required, which makes the process more relaxing. Moreover, with the use of graphics and games in learning, the learning process has become more interesting and fulfilled. The companies engaged in providing content for the online learning develop it on various formats, which are accessible via Android, iOS, Rim or Windows. These applications are more interactive and are able to engage the user for a longer period of time.

Social media learning and game based learning are a part of mobile based learning, which are gaining popularity worldwide. The reach of social media is wide therefore more and more organizations are opting for it. Users can access the training material from their favorite social networking site, which is an added advantage. Moreover, they can also choose from the different training modules given in the social site. If the users like content they can also rate and recommend the content.

Gireesh Sharma is an author writing on Human Resource Management. His expertise includes mobile learning, e-learning development and other Learning & Development matters.

E-Learning Services for Fast Developing Organisations

The advent of technology has marked significant changes in different organizational activities, be it operations or the training procedure. Every organization spends a significant amount of money in training its employees. The employees need periodic training in order to be at par with the current changes in the market. With the evolution of internet, every organization process transformed and so did the training process. Digitization of the training module made the learning process simpler and enjoyable. The reach of the e-learning is beyond geographical barriers therefore, an in-house employee and an employee located in some remote location can be trained simultaneously.

Earlier, the training process was dull, non-interactive and tiresome, but with the evolution of e-learning, the process became highly interactive and enjoyable. The organizations engaged in providing e-learning services ensure that the content is developed as per the requirements of the industry. Each of the industry has different functionality; therefore, their training needs also vary. The e-learning service providers first visit the client's organization and understand their needs, which helps them in developing the right content. The Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), instructional designers and content writers develop the appropriate content for different organizations.

E-learning also promotes collaborative learning where trainees interact with each other and freely exchange their ideas. The learning process is induced via different tools like blogs, polls, surveys, wikis and discussion boards. The views and ideas of all the employees are taken into consideration, thereby, making the learning process more collaborative. This type of learning also helps in understanding the subject matter in a better way. There are various means of providing e-learning; two of the most popular mode of these means is social media and mobile learning.

Social learning is a popular medium of e-learning and many of the organizations are opting of it due to high user engagement. In social learning, individuals can access the training material from their favorite social networking site. There are various catalogs available in these networking sites and individuals can choose the one, which they presume is best suited for them. The users can also rate and recommend the training module to their friends and colleagues, if they find it interesting. The tracking feature of the learning modules is an added advantage, which keeps a check on the modules of the course, which have been completed. Social media is a powerful media and its reach is wide, therefore many of the organizations prefer this media to train their employees.

Gireesh Sharma is an author writing on Human Resource Management. His expertise includes social learning, collaborative learning and other Learning & Development matters.

Further Your Career With Distance Learning MBA

In today's competitive job market, having just a bachelor's degree is just not sufficient to give you an edge over other job applicants. Getting a fulltime MBA degree from a local college or university can also put too much strain on a breadwinner who has to take care of his/her family. But that shouldn't stop one from pursuing further education. You still can advance your career prospects by means of distance education and one such popular distance learning course is MBA.

Distance learning through internet is somewhat a recent happening. The student has to enroll in an online university and take classes online as well. It sounds great isn't it? However a distance learner also has a set of pitfall. To ensure you pursue studies from a recognized university, please keep the following points in your mind.

Choose the right institute:

It is very essential to choose the right school for distance education. There are some good and not so good distance learning institutes. Do not dissipate your money and time on a school that has no national accreditation.

Accreditation is a must:

A degree from any accredited university is a must to advance your career. Hence homework to check the credentials of the school is required. Also, get it verified if all the classes will be conducted online so that you don't get enrolled into a distance learning program which needs at least one or two sessions to be attended in the classroom.

Verify the classrooms' technical capabilities:

It is vital to check the classrooms' technical capabilities. Enquire whether the classes are conducted by means of technology you can access, such as email, websites or bulletin boards. Also, ask whether it would be complex proprietary software or a simple user interface. Just simply don't approve for complex programs. After all, that's why you are going for an online degree program. Whenever you come across any doubt or problem ensure that you take technical help and most importantly, ensure that technical help is available 24/7.

Search programs that have a proven track record. Though the idea of internet learning is new, look out for programs that have superior success rate among graduates.

Must accept loan programs:

Ask whether the school offer adequate education financing. Any accredited school will participate in the federal student loan programs as well as offer financing to distance learners.

Experienced teachers:

Last but not the least, it is essential to know who is teaching. Are there any experienced teachers for the online course? Running a virtual classroom is far different than taking a typical college course. Hence teachers with experience in this type of learning are a must.

Finally, it is important to be self motivated if you want to gain knowledge and success through distance learning MBA. Hence, get yourself disciplined and organized.

Sakshi Sharma is a prolific Mumbai-based freelance writer, who writes on distance learning courses, distance learning education.

Challenges and Fame in Executive Education Training

Companies have turned to executive education training for their leaders development are now needing greater coalescence of learning with the development, implementation and creation of business strategies, need more complicated programs that help their managers and executives face current challenges in disruptive environments. There's an apperceived widening space between what they require and what is offered in the previous market for executive education. The key is to connect learning interferences with strategic business operations, with greater insistence on the theme, so that a successful executive education training experience ought to be embedded within the strategy and culture of the company and supported by its senior management. Executive education training is an input of an operation of major change. It's about unleashing the organizational capabilities and leadership by concentrating on reflection, discovery and dialogue, learning experiences, combining new trends in use, from designs renewed boosting from a main survey of each industry or company.

The primary fragment of executive education training program is known like strategy analyze. The analysis aspect leads data collection on the basis of company's internal dynamics. During the industry analysis, professionals take care of the whole executive plans to address the main issues of the setup sphere including the educational challenges. The question asked during the executive training strategy includes the several strategic objectives that companies work on to encourage the executives in the perfect manner possible. Executives generally want to program and carry out all the executive education training and education activities without searching across the absolute aims and business outcomes of the strategies. During the process, it is not required that more and more utilities and resources are put in action for the good outcomes. These business strategies are nevertheless formulated in harsh accordance with the different levels of results and benefits. A balanced decision-making procedure across the business strategy inference helps decision makers to take best decisions on the matters such as strategy planning, planning implementation, strategy evaluation, and strategy analysis as well.

The process begins with the primary state called Analysis. The process analyzes the present situation of a business moves ahead with the baleful issues regarding functioning and status of the remedial choices available in the company. The strategy process then gravely appraised and formulated on the basis of various essential and core issues. This all rely upon on the overall providing associated mechanism and policy orientations. When the business analysis is finished, future ways are made and marked to renovate the management decisions. Administrators can exuberant proceed with planning the required actions to appropriate or boost the situation. Finally, analyze of the executive education strategy takes place that work ahead with the required action institutional and reforms measure to keep the actual start of the business.

Specialists however believe which deliberate strategy and subject management are vital circumstances that affect the feedback providing processes. The process usually collaborates 3 major parts during the operation. These parts include review, evaluation and monitoring of the ongoing operations.

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