Five Tips for Successful Online Training
July 07 2010 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
Launched in February this year, Citrix® GoToTraining® is
transforming the corporate training market by meeting a growing
need for simple and affordable online training. The company’s easy
to use, purpose-built online training solution is helping
organizations of all sizes expand their reach by delivering
interactive, online training sessions anywhere, at any time. To
help those just making the transition from classroom to online, or
even setting up trainings for the first time, Citrix Online, a
division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS), has put together
some key tips.
First and foremost, remember that the key to effective online
learning is student engagement. As Roger Courville, training
veteran and principal of 1080 Group LLC, explained: “Corporate
trainers used to the classroom environment regularly tell me that
they will lose their ability to connect with students if they take
training online. I tell them, the only way to engage an audience is
to keep it interesting. Up your game—think of yourself as an
entertainer, regardless of the nature of the material.”
Additional tips include:
1. Repurpose and adapt content, don’t just copy your
in-person events. Online training is a different medium and
needs to be treated as such. By all means, repurpose content from
offline training sessions you’ve conducted, but adapt the format to
the online environment. That means developing a new agenda and
flow, new visuals and new interactive activities.
2. Convert your physical classroom content into smaller
modules. In a virtual classroom setting, content can be
delivered in smaller doses over a longer period of time. For
example, 16 hours of content can be delivered in two days in a
physical classroom, but in an online setting, the same class may be
delivered in increments of two hours a day spread over two weeks.
The result is often more effective training and improved learning
retention and application, as your students have time to
incorporate the learnings into their daily work across a longer
training period.
3. Make your materials engaging. With no presenter to
watch, your course materials are the primary focus. You’ll lose
engagement in a heartbeat if you don’t provide interesting content
to help stimulate dialog between instructors and students. Replace
word-intensive content with images and aim to have something occur
on-screen every 2 or 3 minutes. For example, instead of using
slides all the way, mix it up by sharing your desktop and opening
up a blank document to use as a virtual whiteboard or use your
drawing tools to visually highlight the point you are addressing
rather than just talking about it.
4. Use polls, questions and tests to the fullest.
Whether online or offline, your students will soon get bored if you
talk at them for too long. Engage them every step of the way by
conducting regular polls, inviting questions and comments via chat
and asking for a show of hands. Don’t forget to test them at the
beginning and end of every session to determine experience levels
and see how much of the content sank in.
5. Maintain virtual eye contact. You may not be able to
physically see your students, but you can absolutely maintain
engagement by leveraging your online training dashboard. In
addition to your presentation materials, keep the questions box,
chat and even Twitter on-screen at all times. If you’re using
GoToTraining, keep an eye on the attentiveness monitor to see if a
student’s attention is wandering to email instead of being focused
on your training. When you feel like you’re losing your students,
it’s time for an interactive activity to wake everyone up.
Related links: Citrix Online Launches GoToTrainingCitrix
Online Wins Stevie AwardWebinar – July 7, 2010 – Getting Started
with Interactive Online TrainingWebinar – July 15, 2010 – Think
Like a CEO: How to Align Training & Communications with
Business StrategyResearch into the state of corporate
trainingTwitter: @gototraining
About GoToTraining
With GoToTraining, businesses of all sizes can easily move their
curriculums online and instantly host interactive training sessions
for participants from any location, enabling trainers to broaden
their reach and effectiveness while economizing on time and travel
costs. Key features include full-service registration, content
library and material distribution, real-time curriculum management,
testing options and integrated audio conferencing. For more
information and a 30-day trial, go to www.gototraining.com.Use
promo code: trainingtips.
About Citrix Systems, Inc.
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is a leading provider of
virtual computing solutions that help companies deliver IT as an
on-demand service. Founded in 1989, Citrix combines virtualization,
networking, and cloud computing technologies into a full portfolio
of products that enable virtual workstyles for users and virtual
datacenters for IT. More than 230,000 organizations worldwide rely
on Citrix to help them build simpler and more cost-effective IT
environments. Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies in more
than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2009 was $1.61 billion.
Citrix® and GoToTraining® are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc.
and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All
other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their
respective owners.
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