Stress-Free Online Training Courses: Breaking It Up

One major plus of online training courses is the flexibility they provide to you, the student. You can learn at home, at the library, or on the road. And with about 300 Municipal Wi-Fi projects in the making around the world, which will provide wireless access to entire cities, the possibilities will be endless.

The flip side of elearning's flexibility is the healthy dose of self-discipline it requires. In order to juggle all the activities in your busy schedule and create a stress-free elearning experience, some planning and strategizing are called for. Here are five tricks you can use.

First, practice distributed learning.

Study skills for online training courses are in many ways like exercising and eating habits. A healthy approach to exercise is to find ways to move your body constantly, rather than remaining stationary all day but at 9 pm squeezing in a trip to the gym. In the same vein, smaller, more frequent meals keep your metabolism stimulated and running smoothly.

When you're studying online course material, a healthy approach is distributed learning, or breaking learning up into small, more frequent study sessions. Just like the metabolism's response to food, the brain is stimulated by smaller installations of information. Your brain likes to recover and recharge between learning. In the periods between online courseware study sessions, the brain rests and digests learning material.

Second, develop a set schedule. This is an essential aspect of managing your time and reserving a chunk of your day for your online courseware. A good, well-planned schedule can help you in all kinds of ways. You'll keep track of your time and feel more satisfied when you've completed the work you need to do. But at its essence, a schedule is meant to save you time.

Having said that, it's important to remember that schedules should be created with the premise that they're flexible. If studying your online training course at 10 pm hasn't been working out after all--you get sleepy and zone out a bit--change the schedule. It's meant to keep you from wandering off course, and if you're doing that anyway while following the schedule, then it's time to revise it. Online training courses, remember, are designed for your busy life, and you're in charge.

Capture Your Screen Activity for Elearning Integration with Coggno LMS Software

Are you searching for an inspired way to create sharp and effective LMS software training and courseware? Try screen recording.

LMS and elearning course platform Coggno and its Application exchange partner Blueberry Software have teamed up to provide Coggno's authors an exciting and rich toolkit for course design.

BB FlashBack includes many exciting features that integrate seamlessly with Coggno's LMS software.

Webcam Recording allows for the user to create his or her own webcam video. Sound recording allows users to read a commentary at the same time as the screen is being recorded, using a microphone, microphone headset or other inexpensive hardware.

BB FlashBack's screen recording includes an incredibly simple-to-use interface, instant video creation, and easy editing.

Save movies in all the major video formats, including Flash, QuickTime (H264), Windows Media Video (WMV), AVI, or EXE. You can easily add text, sound, images, and 'zoom & pan' effects. Also, you are able to edit multi track audio and video, side by side.

BB FlashBack is able to record high frame rate, high quality movies without affecting PC performance--even on lower powered PCs. BB users have successfully recorded large animations with which other screen recorders experienced problems. And finally BB's robust annotation, editing and effects features allow Coggno's LMS software users to frame and fashion movies just the way they want them.

Create Harmonious LMS Online Teams

In designing and maintaining your organization's LMS online training, keep in mind its community-building capacity. The more interactive and collaborative, the more effective your course will be. Synergy is the bread and butter of today's globalizing economy.

These days, organizations are practically composed of a vast network of teams to meet all the goals and functions an organization has. An LMS can be not only a helpful way to organize employee training, but service teams can use them to keep track of customers and employee achievements. Service teams are an increasingly international group. They support customers or the internal organization, normally with a service or technical support role, 24/7.

Training for a role in a service team is something an LMS can take care of, with video tools, simulations, and audio tools like those used by Coggno, to create situations dealing with customers. Some LMSs are even multi-lingual, offering a variety of built-in languages to personalize employees' training experiences.

One problem virtual teams may experience involves the very learning system tools that are meant to facilitate group collaboration. Although cutting-edge collaboration and learning system technologies like Web 2.0 tools and even virtual worlds can help virtual teams achieve goals, the introduction of these technologies can also impose time-costing distractions.
The introduction of a real-time conferencing and collaboration tools may sidetrack members from their focus and draw them into a distracting cycle of tool experimentation. Or an interactive virtual world that is meant as a product-creation learning system, training tool or meeting space may take hours for users to get the hang of, and ultimately may not even function efficiently. The existence of a solid team base is crucial, greatly overshadowing the importance of the newest, fanciest

Engaging, Pocket-Sized Content for a Learning Management System

In a training course hosted via a learning management system, lectures can be presented in a number of exciting ways. Information can be laid out on a web page or in a downloadable packet.

But why not make it more interesting? One way to provide lectures in a convenient and optimally portable way is in audio or video format, via podcast.

Podcasts have an array of educational possibilities, and appeal to many learning styles. They are an exciting and convenient feature added to any course content. Podcasts can be used to supplement and reinforce course learning material, or renew learning activities.

They can be used as announcements, reminders, and updates to be heard by everyone using the learning management system. Podcasts can be used to distribute interviews and discussions, or to inform students what to expect in the next lesson.

They are easy to create, produce, and share, and listeners don't need an iPod to listen to them. Podcasts are typically in the form of mp3 files, making them accessible to all learners.

What are the criteria for a good podcast? Topics depend on the learning content of your course or the functions you've assigned to the podcasts within your learning management system.

Especially if the content is more technical or number-oriented, keep the podcast at 5 to 10 minutes. Many listeners who don't have an excessive amount of time to spare generally avoid long texts, courses, etc. Small installments of learning content are ideal.

Providing intriguing material that piques listeners' interest is essential to the success of any podcast. Otherwise, your listeners' attention will begin to slip. True, choosing material that's interesting is a matter of taste and opinion, but the way in which you present the information can make or break your podcast's effectiveness in a learning management system.