Five Tips for Successful Online Training

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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